We NEED More of this! 🔥 Expose the corruption! Love it - 🗣️🗣️🗣️! pic.twitter.com/5EAGLMc0eD

— Emily (@Emme0703) April 13, 2023

20 years ago these people were in Howard Dean meetups, monopolizing discussions, accusing America of everything, and making Dean look like a radical with idiot supporters. They made it harder to get national healthcare and avoid the Iraq War. They made W Bush sound reasonable.

I am glad they have moved to the right.

It's Howard Dean who has "moved to the right", if that's what you mean by selling out. He's been a shell of his former self, a pro-war turncoat who lobbies for big pharma.

Quote:

---

Since joining the lobbying industry, Dean has oddly argued on multiple occasions that he does "not lobby." But he engages in virtually every lobbying activity imaginable, helping corporate interests reach out to lawmakers on legislation, advising them on political strategy, and using his credibility as a former liberal lion to build public support on behalf of his lobby firm clients.

In his new career, he has helped drug companies maintain monopoly power, reversed his old positions on Medicare prices, and worked to undermine a critical component of the Affordable Care Act. Though known for his anti-war rhetoric in 2004, Dean has accepted money from Mojahedin-e Khalq, an extremist group seeking regime change in Iran and has criticized President Obama's negotiations with Iran.

...Dean's call for extending the exclusivity period for biologics a move that would boost prices for life-saving drugs shocked patient and consumer advocates. Dean did not initially disclose that he was working for BIO in his column, although The Hill later updated his byline to note that Dean's law firm represented biotech companies.

The inside story of Dean's work for the biotech lobby was revealed in an article by BioCentury, a trade publication. According to the report, Dean and his former campaign manager Joe Trippi were hired by BIO to help move forward the biologic legislation backed by the industry. Jim Greenwood, the president of BIO, told BioCentury that Dean was brought on to help with messaging, strategy, and even to contact lawmakers on Capitol Hill on behalf of the industry. BIO made clear that Dean was hired specifically for his reputation as a liberal. "As a physician clearly focused on health care, a Democrat leader and clearly to left of center, his efforts were impactful," Greenwood said.

---

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/21/howard-dean-despite-denials-has-long-sad-history-of-selling-himself-on-k-street/

Dean is the poster boy of ideologically bankrupt aging liberals selling out.

Document from the recent leaks summarizing Russian tactics in the Donbass, which have resulted in a 10 to 1 loss ratio for Ukraine:



The true picture of the battlefront is starting to emerge. If people knew what was really going on, they would have pushed for a stop of this one-sided massacre, instead of feeding Ukrainian men to this meat grinder by the hundreds of thousands - to the last Ukrainian.

Cal88 said:

---

Document from the recent leaks summarizing Russian tactics in the Donbass, which have resulted in a 10 to 1 loss ratio for Ukraine:



The true picture of the battlefront is starting to emerge. If people knew what was really going on, they would have pushed for a stop of this one-sided massacre, instead of feeding Ukrainian men to this meat grinder by the hundreds of thousands - to the last Ukrainian.

---

We've been pushing for Putin to stop for awhile now.

dimitrig said:

---

Cal88 said:

---

Document from the recent leaks summarizing Russian tactics in the Donbass, which have resulted in a 10 to 1 loss ratio for Ukraine:



The true picture of the battlefront is starting to emerge. If people knew what was really going on, they would have pushed for a stop of this one-sided massacre, instead of feeding Ukrainian men to this meat grinder by the hundreds of thousands - to the last Ukrainian.

---

We've been pushing for Putin to stop for awhile now.

---

LOL, the post you quoted is straight propaganda from last summer. It's textbook firehose of falsehoods and whatever Russian handler provided the fake talking point thinks no one has google.

https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/a-birds-eye-view-of-ukraine-warhtml

My initial reaction on seeing your post quoting Putin88 was that there was zero chance that it was written by someone in government or who has any idea what they are talking about so I googled it.

The only change he made was to take the made up 8 to 1 kill ratio and change it to 10 to 1. I guess even he was too embarrassed to try for 20 or 30 to 1. The firehose of falsehoods loves a big lie.

This is why Putin88 is unworthy of engagement. He continues to knowingly post ridiculously false information and just hopes people won't fact check him. Whether it's prop from Russian shills like this, or cherry picking or unsupported claims or bold predictions which never come true or just falling for fake magazine covered, the one constant is that you can count on him to be wrong and to be wrong in favor of
Putin.

The only thing that would have made it better is if he had criticized the media for refusing to amplify his laughably false claims.

Cal88 said:

---

The true picture of the battlefront is starting to emerge. If people knew what was really going on, they would have pushed for a stop of this one-sided massacre, instead of feeding Ukrainian men to this meat grinder by the hundreds of thousands - to the last Ukrainian.

---

You're hilarious.

I guess shills gotta shill.

Hundreds of drones? Yikes. Possibly some of the worst proportional damage ever seen. And we never took the foot off the gas. Horrible. Disgusting.

Unit2Sucks - numerous officials say Pentagon Papers 2.0 are legit; some say its legit, with a few propoganda edits.

And now we're supposed to believe a 21-year-old National Guard grunt is the key figure. Laughable.

The liberal MSM now focuses on Bluto while ignoring a massacre and disastrous Administration.

Unit2Sucks said:

---

dimitrig said:

---

Cal88 said:

---

Document from the recent leaks summarizing Russian tactics in the Donbass, which have resulted in a 10 to 1 loss ratio for Ukraine:



The true picture of the battlefront is starting to emerge. If people knew what was really going on, they would have pushed for a stop of this one-sided massacre, instead of feeding Ukrainian men to this meat grinder by the hundreds of thousands - to the last Ukrainian.

---

We've been pushing for Putin to stop for awhile now.

---

LOL, the post you quoted is straight propaganda from last summer. It's textbook firehose of falsehoods and whatever Russian handler provided the fake talking point thinks no one has google.

https://imetatronink.substack.com/p/a-birds-eye-view-of-ukraine-warhtml

My initial reaction on seeing your post quoting Putin88 was that there was zero chance that it was written by someone in government or who has any idea what they are talking about so I googled it.

The only change he made was to take the made up 8 to 1 kill ratio and change it to 10 to 1. I guess even he was too embarrassed to try for 20 or 30 to 1. The firehose of falsehoods loves a big lie.

This is why Putin88 is unworthy of engagement. He continues to knowingly post ridiculously false information and just hopes people won't fact check him. Whether it's prop from Russian shills like this, or cherry picking or unsupported claims or bold predictions which never come true or just falling for fake magazine covered, the one constant is that you can count on him to be wrong and to be wrong in favor of Putin.

The only thing that would have made it better is if he had criticized the media for refusing to amplify his laughably false claims.

---

You've posted ridiculously bad propaganda, stories like Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, having been poisoned by Putin and escaping to Dubai to get treatment, and you have the gall to call my post falsehoods...

The documents leaked did reveal that Ukraine has been taking disproportionally high losses, which is a basic aspect of this war that has been hidden from the general public, both by the MSM and by the government and military leaders, and that is the bottom line here you are refusing to acknowledge.

It’s no wonder that essential questions seem to have gotten lost in the official narrative: How did a young, low level National Guard enlistee manage to get his hands on top secret classified documents? Did he have help? I can’t imagine how a part time IT worker pulled this off.

— Kingmaker - Big IF! (True) (@KingMakerFT) April 15, 2023

Alex Vindman leaked national security info to destabilise a Commander-in-Chief and help provoke a war in Ukraine.

He goes on chat shows now.

Jack Teixeira leaked information showing how government is lying to you and the world in furtherance of those wars.

He’s in a cell now.

— Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) April 14, 2023

Forget this costly war. It's obvious that 20 year old gamers are a threat to our democracy and our American way of life.

Lt. Col. Vindman Admitted Leaking Documents Meant To Help Dems Impeach Trump—Never Served Time, While 21-Yr-Old Jack Teixeira Was Arrested For The Same Crime

-@gatewaypundit https://t.co/DZXAkMhSXf

— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) April 15, 2023

Few small hits today for anyone interested. Still lots of fog of war at this point, but it's clear that the leaks have emboldened Putin to increase the velocity of his firehose of falsehoods. Here are some alternative views that haven't been bought and paid for by Putin.

First - lots of Russian shills are claiming that the leaks show higher UFA losses than Russia. That's true if you believe doctored documents. Here's a copy of a document that was leaked that clearly shows Russia suffering far more losses over the course of the war than Russia. Of course, Putin considers Russian lives expendable so it's all 0 to him.

Idk what your smoking, but the leaks did not show that Ukraine is losing(except for the badly photoshopped versions the russians have been sharing around), if anything they confirmed russia has been suffering far higher casualties than Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/QbObFBxkbR

— Canis Occulatus (@CanisOcculatus) April 14, 2023

The mass destruction of encrypted RuAF radios that filled out only part of the now destroyed RuAF less than 20 year old armored vehicle park leaves Mobiks vulnerable to Ukrainian radio Psywar Ops⬇️

1/5 https://t.co/UhNkQHj7hP

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) April 15, 2023

14 months in, Russian volunteer Anastasiya Kashevarova suddenly found that Russian morale is low because Russian soldiers have no idea what they're fighting for. Not only that, but their "feats" are not appreciated, payments are delayed, wrong people are being rewarded, yada… pic.twitter.com/sHd0g6vz1n

— Dmitri (@wartranslated) April 14, 2023

Brief note from Kiyanyn on Bakhmut (note that he is not there at the moment but gets information from brothers-in-arms so it's all generalistic). pic.twitter.com/DzzNF6BZgI

— Dmitri (@wartranslated) April 15, 2023

This last one is a pretty detailed opinion on what could happen over the next few months along with a more rational assessment of where we are than the people who have been claiming for a year that Russia was days away from taking Bakhmut due to their magic.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/beginning-end-putin-ukraine

Quote:

---

As the Ukrainian spring bloodily transitions into summer, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Generals are trying to manage a stalled, if not, failed winter offensive in the Donbas that has left as many as 75,000 Russian soldiers and Wagner Group mercenaries dead. As the Kremlin's overall casualties continue to mount, upwards of 200,000 according to the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense, it is becoming increasingly clear we are likely seeing the beginning of the end of Putin in Ukraine especially as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Generals draw nearer Kyiv's much-anticipated counteroffensive.

---

You're doubling down on a very poor attempt at spin.


You have to be completely gaslit, or straight out lying to believe that Ukrainian KIAs are around 17k. The question is here was the intel so badly inaccurate, or was the original document faked? I would guess the latter, given that EU head Ursula von der Leyen casually blew the lid on the real number of Ukrainian KIAs in her November 30 speech, declaring that more than 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers were already killed.

Trying to claim that Ukrainian losses are in the 17,000 range in light of this evidence is completely ludicrous, you are discrediting yourself and your sources above here.

Furthermore, the von der Leyen estimate was most likely a lowball estimate of the real Ukrainian KIA figures, coming from a high-level NATO/EU source.

The last 4 months of the conflict have seen continued fierce conflict, which has been particularly brutal for Ukraine, mostly in Bakhmut, but also in Avdievka and other fronts, so you would expect a loss rate at least as high as in the previous 9 months of the conflict which resulted in 100,000+ Ukrainian KIA, about 11,000 KIAs/month. Therefore an estimate of 150,000 for current Ukrainian KIAs is a reasonable lower-bound estimate.


The estimated number of Russian KIA is somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000, with nearly half of these coming from Wagner or DNR/LNR Donbass militias, which means around 20k-30k KIA from the Russian regular army.

Almost all the Russian KIAs have been accounted for, buried and/or repatriated, with their families receiving benefits, whereas a large proportion of Ukrainian KIAs are left to rot on the fields or in city ruins:

Ukrainian commanders sending their soldiers on pointless missions to die, then they keep their pay while not reporting them as dead.

Here is another video with Ukrainians talking about it.
What do you think? Is it true?

🔊
Ht @MyLordBebo pic.twitter.com/KOqcrxBtfO

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) April 11, 2023

At 1:24, Ukrainian officer complains about the dead not being evacuated.

The unit unanimously complains of:
-being labelled as "special forces" and sent to Bakhmut while actually being volunteers without much training
-being sent there without equipment, without armored vehicles or artillery support, without proper communication and intel
-being sent in low numbers, with an undercount of 3 to 5 times actual numbers (3:20 mark)
-wounded not evacuated, left to die (4:40 mark)

"we're just getting killed stupidly in large numbers as a result of criminal orders"

The most troubling element in this testimony by Ukrainian troops is that their commanders are financially profiting from their death, by inflating the numbers in their platoons and pocketing the corresponding inflated salaries.

Another scheme is to withhold soldiers' monthly payments and postdate their death in order for the commanders to pocket the difference - a battalion of 475 soldiers, all dead or missing except for 20 remaining fighters who are sent to the front severely undermanned and underequipped:

If you know that the payments for soldiers go through the unit commanders, this changes the whole picture. That guy was not paid for 3 months … now “if he would disappear” his commander benefits. So to Bakhmut?
-> The cruel reality … I’m devastated with this cynicism.

6/ pic.twitter.com/r1O9UA0FNN

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) April 11, 2023

There are many more videos of Ukrainian troops complaining of these corrupt military schemes.
Sister of slain Ukrainian soldier confirms soldiers being sent to the slaughter without proper equipment, wounded left to die, "our guys are sent to their death, just getting annihilated, disposed away" :

Very simple! The payments for soldiers, missing soldiers or “ghost soldiers” only existing on paper, go through the battalion commanders.
-> The commanders can keep the money! Additionally for a missing soldier the commanders gets additionally 3 months of salary + bonuses.

4/ pic.twitter.com/EyFZDWsD8B

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) April 11, 2023

Same statements from a 60yo Ukrainian soldier, exposing corruption at the top, Ukraine command refuses to acknowledge KIAs, in order to keep these numbers low, to deprive the families of slain soldiers from benefits, and for the middle officers to pocket their pay:

If everybody is “missing” they save on payments to families and obscure true losses to the west!
-> Now we need to understand how the military commanders are profiting from “disposing” of their own units? They seem to trick their soldiers into the Bakhmut meat grinder. Why?

3/ pic.twitter.com/YoNgS0aTeD

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) April 11, 2023

This is the reality of this war massacre. It needs to stop!

All of these Ukrainian soldiers and family members risk severe punishment for coming out publicly to denounce military and political corruption in this war which is costing the lives hundreds of thousands of their compatriots.

pic.twitter.com/6gfv62Ff5h

— Bonkie (@Bonkie52526205) April 16, 2023

Cal88 said:

---

You're doubling down on a very poor attempt at spin.


You have to be completely gaslit, or straight out lying to believe that Ukrainian KIAs are around 17k. The question is here was the intel so badly inaccurate, or was the original document faked? I would guess the latter, given that EU head Ursula von der Leyen casually blew the lid on the real number of Ukrainian KIAs in her November 30 speech, declaring that more than 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers were already killed.

Trying to claim that Ukrainian losses are in the 17,000 range in light of this evidence is completely ludicrous, you are discrediting yourself and your sources above here.

Furthermore, the von der Leyen estimate was most likely a lowball estimate of the real Ukrainian KIA figures, coming from a high-level NATO/EU source.

The last 4 months of the conflict have seen continued fierce conflict, which has been particularly brutal for Ukraine, mostly in Bakhmut, but also in Avdievka and other fronts, so you would expect a loss rate at least as high as in the previous 9 months of the conflict which resulted in 100,000+ Ukrainian KIA, about 11,000 KIAs/month. Therefore an estimate of 150,000 for current Ukrainian KIAs is a reasonable lower-bound estimate.


The estimated number of Russian KIA is somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000, with nearly half of these coming from Wagner or DNR/LNR Donbass militias, which means around 20k-30k KIA from the Russian regular army.

Almost all the Russian KIAs have been accounted for, buried and/or repatriated, with their families receiving benefits, whereas a large proportion of Ukrainian KIAs are left to rot on the fields or in city ruins:

Ukrainian commanders sending their soldiers on pointless missions to die, then they keep their pay while not reporting them as dead.

Here is another video with Ukrainians talking about it.
What do you think? Is it true?

🔊
Ht @MyLordBebo pic.twitter.com/KOqcrxBtfO

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) April 11, 2023

At 1:24, Ukrainian officer complains about the dead not being evacuated.

The unit unanimously complains of:
-being labelled as "special forces" and sent to Bakhmut while actually being volunteers without much training
-being sent there without equipment, without armored vehicles or artillery support, without proper communication and intel
-being sent in low numbers, with an undercount of 3 to 5 times actual numbers (3:20 mark)
-wounded not evacuated, left to die (4:40 mark)

"we're just getting killed stupidly in large numbers as a result of criminal orders"

The most troubling element in this testimony by Ukrainian troops is that their commanders are financially profiting from their death, by inflating the numbers in their platoons and pocketing the corresponding inflated salaries.

Another scheme is to withhold soldiers' monthly payments and postdate their death in order for the commanders to pocket the difference - a battalion of 475 soldiers, all dead or missing except for 20 remaining fighters who are sent to the front severely undermanned and underequipped:

If you know that the payments for soldiers go through the unit commanders, this changes the whole picture. That guy was not paid for 3 months … now “if he would disappear” his commander benefits. So to Bakhmut?
-> The cruel reality … I’m devastated with this cynicism.

6/ pic.twitter.com/r1O9UA0FNN

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) April 11, 2023

There are many more videos of Ukrainian troops complaining of these corrupt military schemes.
Sister of slain Ukrainian soldier confirms soldiers being sent to the slaughter without proper equipment, wounded left to die, "our guys are sent to their death, just getting annihilated, disposed away" :

Very simple! The payments for soldiers, missing soldiers or “ghost soldiers” only existing on paper, go through the battalion commanders.
-> The commanders can keep the money! Additionally for a missing soldier the commanders gets additionally 3 months of salary + bonuses.

4/ pic.twitter.com/EyFZDWsD8B

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) April 11, 2023

Same statements from a 60yo Ukrainian soldier, exposing corruption at the top, Ukraine command refuses to acknowledge KIAs, in order to keep these numbers low, to deprive the families of slain soldiers from benefits, and for the middle officers to pocket their pay:

If everybody is “missing” they save on payments to families and obscure true losses to the west!
-> Now we need to understand how the military commanders are profiting from “disposing” of their own units? They seem to trick their soldiers into the Bakhmut meat grinder. Why?

3/ pic.twitter.com/YoNgS0aTeD

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) April 11, 2023

This is the reality of this war massacre. It needs to stop!

All of these Ukrainian soldiers and family members risk severe punishment for coming out publicly to denounce military and political corruption in this war which is costing the lives hundreds of thousands of their compatriots.

---

I agree! Putin and Russia should stop their completely unprovoked and immoral war of conquest and stop killing Ukranians. Every single dead ukranian soldier, dead civilian and refugee has only Vladimir Putin to blame. If you want ukranians to stop dying, then Putin needs to stop invading!

golden sloth said:

---

I agree! Putin and Russia should stop their completely unprovoked and immoral war of conquest and stop killing Ukranians. Every single dead ukranian soldier, dead civilian and refugee has only Vladimir Putin to blame. If you want ukranians to stop dying, then Putin needs to stop invading!

---

Sorry, but you're just not getting it. Obviously the best way to stop the violence is for Ukraine to roll over and give Putin whatever he wants.

Cal88 said:

---

Minsk II would have been enough for him, it would have saved a quarter million mostly Ukrainian lives, and counting. Ukraine could have lived with the Donbass people running their lives in their own language and Crimea being Russian. Instead we have this cataclismic alternative now into which Ukrainians were more or less coercively railroaded.

---

Putin doesnt give a damn about Minsk II.

sycasey said:

---

golden sloth said:

---

I agree! Putin and Russia should stop their completely unprovoked and immoral war of conquest and stop killing Ukranians. Every single dead ukranian soldier, dead civilian and refugee has only Vladimir Putin to blame. If you want ukranians to stop dying, then Putin needs to stop invading!

---

Sorry, but you're just not getting it. Obviously the best way to stop the violence is for Ukraine to roll over and give Putin whatever he wants.

---

If you look at history, Russia's imperialism has always been a net positive for all the peoples they subjugated. There was never any famine or gulags or persecuation. That is why every single former Soviet socialist republic wants to be reunited with Russia, and they have turned a cold shoulder to NATO and the EU. It's just those pesky Americans that are forcing them to send their weapons to Ukraine and prevent reunification.

golden sloth said:

---

sycasey said:

---

golden sloth said:

---

I agree! Putin and Russia should stop their completely unprovoked and immoral war of conquest and stop killing Ukranians. Every single dead ukranian soldier, dead civilian and refugee has only Vladimir Putin to blame. If you want ukranians to stop dying, then Putin needs to stop invading!

---

Sorry, but you're just not getting it. Obviously the best way to stop the violence is for Ukraine to roll over and give Putin whatever he wants.

---

If you look at history, Russia's imperialism has always been a net positive for all the peoples they subjugated. There was never any famine or gulags or persecuation. That is why every single former Soviet socialist republic wants to be reunited with Russia, and they have turned a cold shoulder to NATO and the EU. It's just those pesky Americans that are forcing them to send their weapons to Ukraine and prevent reunification.

---

That is a very poor understanding of Russian/east European history. The gulags, holodomor are a result of Bolshevism, not an intrinsically Russian cultural phenomenon, but the result of exceptional circumstances bringing about a horrible system in place, much like Germany turned nazi or the Khmer Rouge emerged in Cambodia.

The Russians were the Bolsheviks primary target, with somewhere between 30 to 40 million Russians being exterminated between 1917 and 1940. Lenin and Trotsky abhorred Russian nationalism and culture, which they sought to eradicate, deporting millions of Orthodox clergy and faithful.

In Ukraine's case, Russian imperialism has been a net positive for Crimeans, and down the line the Russophones who make up nearly a third of Ukraine.

Ukraine's tragedy is that a certain strain of early 20th century Ukrainian nationalism has been reactivated and adopted as their modern identity. Stepan Bandera is their George Washington founding father figure. This brand of nationalism, which is inherently highly hostile to all minorities (especially Russians) has set that country on a collision course with its big neighbor.

U. of Rhode Island prof Nicola Petro, author of "The Tragedy of Ukraine", has done a tremendous job researching and documenting the Ukrainian internal factors that have led to this war, quality academic work that dismisses the easy russophobic Hollywood-like mainstream narrative of intrinsically evil Russia being the source of all ills in eastern Europe:

Cal88 said:

---

golden sloth said:

---

sycasey said:

---

golden sloth said:

---

I agree! Putin and Russia should stop their completely unprovoked and immoral war of conquest and stop killing Ukranians. Every single dead ukranian soldier, dead civilian and refugee has only Vladimir Putin to blame. If you want ukranians to stop dying, then Putin needs to stop invading!

---

Sorry, but you're just not getting it. Obviously the best way to stop the violence is for Ukraine to roll over and give Putin whatever he wants.

---

If you look at history, Russia's imperialism has always been a net positive for all the peoples they subjugated. There was never any famine or gulags or persecuation. That is why every single former Soviet socialist republic wants to be reunited with Russia, and they have turned a cold shoulder to NATO and the EU. It's just those pesky Americans that are forcing them to send their weapons to Ukraine and prevent reunification.

---

That is a very poor understanding of Russian/east European history. The gulags, holodomor are a result of Bolshevism, not an intrinsically Russian cultural phenomenon, but the result of exceptional circumstances bringing about a horrible system in place, much like Germany turned nazi or the Khmer Rouge emerged in Cambodia.

The Russians were the Bolsheviks primary target, with somewhere between 30 to 40 million Russians being exterminated between 1917 and 1940. Lenin and Trotsky abhorred Russian nationalism and culture, which they sought to eradicate, deporting millions of Orthodox clergy and faithful.

In Ukraine's case, Russian imperialism has been a net positive for Crimeans, and down the line the Russophones who make up nearly a third of Ukraine.

Ukraine's tragedy is that a certain strain of early 20th century Ukrainian nationalism has been reactivated and adopted as their modern identity. Stepan Bandera is their George Washington founding father figure. This brand of nationalism, which is inherently highly hostile to all minorities (especially Russians) has set that country on a collision course with its big neighbor.

U. of Rhode Island prof Nicola Petro, author of "The Tragedy of Ukraine", has done a tremendous job researching and documenting the Ukrainian internal factors that have led to this war, quality academic work that dismisses the easy russophobic Hollywood-like mainstream narrative of intrinsically evil Russia being the source of all ills in eastern Europe:

---

You are right, what was I thinking. Russia is the singular entity bringing light, compassion, and humanity to the world. Russia has no responsibility for Russian history because Russian history is littered with darkness, but Russia is actually great, therefore Russia is not responsible for the horrors of the past. All glory and grace to Russia and Savior Vladimir Putin!

golden sloth said:

---

Cal88 said:

---

golden sloth said:

---

sycasey said:

---

golden sloth said:

---

I agree! Putin and Russia should stop their completely unprovoked and immoral war of conquest and stop killing Ukranians. Every single dead ukranian soldier, dead civilian and refugee has only Vladimir Putin to blame. If you want ukranians to stop dying, then Putin needs to stop invading!

---

Sorry, but you're just not getting it. Obviously the best way to stop the violence is for Ukraine to roll over and give Putin whatever he wants.

---

If you look at history, Russia's imperialism has always been a net positive for all the peoples they subjugated. There was never any famine or gulags or persecuation. That is why every single former Soviet socialist republic wants to be reunited with Russia, and they have turned a cold shoulder to NATO and the EU. It's just those pesky Americans that are forcing them to send their weapons to Ukraine and prevent reunification.

---

That is a very poor understanding of Russian/east European history. The gulags, holodomor are a result of Bolshevism, not an intrinsically Russian cultural phenomenon, but the result of exceptional circumstances bringing about a horrible system in place, much like Germany turned nazi or the Khmer Rouge emerged in Cambodia.

The Russians were the Bolsheviks primary target, with somewhere between 30 to 40 million Russians being exterminated between 1917 and 1940. Lenin and Trotsky abhorred Russian nationalism and culture, which they sought to eradicate, deporting millions of Orthodox clergy and faithful.

In Ukraine's case, Russian imperialism has been a net positive for Crimeans, and down the line the Russophones who make up nearly a third of Ukraine.

Ukraine's tragedy is that a certain strain of early 20th century Ukrainian nationalism has been reactivated and adopted as their modern identity. Stepan Bandera is their George Washington founding father figure. This brand of nationalism, which is inherently highly hostile to all minorities (especially Russians) has set that country on a collision course with its big neighbor.

U. of Rhode Island prof Nicola Petro, author of "The Tragedy of Ukraine", has done a tremendous job researching and documenting the Ukrainian internal factors that have led to this war, quality academic work that dismisses the easy russophobic Hollywood-like mainstream narrative of intrinsically evil Russia being the source of all ills in eastern Europe:

---

You are right, what was I thinking. Russia is the singular entity bringing light, compassion, and humanity to the world. Russia has no responsibility for Russian history because Russian history is littered with darkness, but Russia is actually great, therefore Russia is not responsible for the horrors of the past. All glory and grace to Russia and Savior Vladimir Putin!

---

The argument about how Bolshevism was not "real" Russian culture is absolutely hilarious. No True Scotsman fallacy in full effect.

golden sloth said:

---

You are right, what was I thinking. Russia is the singular entity bringing light, compassion, and humanity to the world. Russia has no responsibility for Russian history because Russian history is littered with darkness, but Russia is actually great, therefore Russia is not responsible for the horrors of the past. All glory and grace to Russia and Savior Vladimir Putin!

---

Honestly, I dont think that I've ever seen a post by Cal88 that has ever criticized Vladimir Putin.
If anyone can find one, I'll donate $500 to Cal Athletics.

Acknowledging that Crimea was Russian territory was an easy concession, same as Donbas autonomy. Now look at the catastrophic results.

The Kosovo case is precisely relevant to Crimea as the formalism in Crimea were guided by principles for Kosovo referendum. Which US supported and promoted. (And later installed big military base in Kosovo).

— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) April 14, 2023

There is zero evidence that outcome of the Crimea referendum was unrepresentative of the desires of Crimea population. And Crimea had only been administratively attached to Ukraine for a few decades and was uncommitted to Ukraine to say the least.

— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) April 14, 2023

Buried 2007 video of Senator Joe Biden discussing troop removal from Afghanistan. It would be a shame if everyone saw this...

"And you leave those billions of dollars of weapons behind I promise they're going to be used against your grandchild and mine some day" - The Big Guy pic.twitter.com/gWzDoh5DtR

— Gain of Fauci (@DschlopesIsBack) April 9, 2023

movielover said:

---

Acknowledging that Crimea was Russian territory was an easy concession, same as Donbas autonomy. Now look at the catastrophic results.

The Kosovo case is precisely relevant to Crimea as the formalism in Crimea were guided by principles for Kosovo referendum. Which US supported and promoted. (And later installed big military base in Kosovo).

— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) April 14, 2023

There is zero evidence that outcome of the Crimea referendum was unrepresentative of the desires of Crimea population. And Crimea had only been administratively attached to Ukraine for a few decades and was uncommitted to Ukraine to say the least.

— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) April 14, 2023

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Yea, there is zero evidence because after Russia conquered Crimea, they held a sham referendum, and then never let anyone investigate its legitimacy.

No point was proven.

Rise of Russia: American Thinker called anti-Russian sanctions "the most grandiose miscalculation of the West in history".

"The measures did not bring the Russian economy to its knees. Instead, the Western economies are shaking. pic.twitter.com/zNPXs1CgRD

— Trollstoy (@Trollstoy88) April 17, 2023

golden sloth said:

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movielover said:

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Acknowledging that Crimea was Russian territory was an easy concession, same as Donbas autonomy. Now look at the catastrophic results.

The Kosovo case is precisely relevant to Crimea as the formalism in Crimea were guided by principles for Kosovo referendum. Which US supported and promoted. (And later installed big military base in Kosovo).

— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) April 14, 2023

There is zero evidence that outcome of the Crimea referendum was unrepresentative of the desires of Crimea population. And Crimea had only been administratively attached to Ukraine for a few decades and was uncommitted to Ukraine to say the least.

— Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) April 14, 2023

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Yea, there is zero evidence because after Russia conquered Crimea, they held a sham referendum, and then never let anyone investigate its legitimacy.

No point was proven.

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Not only did they rig the referendum, but they've somehow also managed to rig the following as well:
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum#Post-referendum_polls][/url]
-the Gallup poll that showed 83% of Crimeans agree to joining Russia,

-the Pew Research poll that showed 91% of Crimeans thought the referendum was free and fair,

-the poll from Germany's biggest market research organization, GfK, which showed that 82% of Crimeans fully supported Russian reunification...

World-class riggers! s/

movielover said:

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Rise of Russia: American Thinker called anti-Russian sanctions "the most grandiose miscalculation of the West in history".

"The measures did not bring the Russian economy to its knees. Instead, the Western economies are shaking. pic.twitter.com/zNPXs1CgRD

— Trollstoy (@Trollstoy88) April 17, 2023

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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/04/russias_rise.html

Russia's Rise
By Patricia Adams and Lawrence Solomon


The West's sweeping sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine are shaping up to be the West's most monumental miscalculation in modern history. The sanctions have not brought the Russian economy to its knees, as was widely predicted. Instead, it's the Western economies that are reeling, their economic growth all but stopped. Many of them are simultaneously suffering from both high inflation and energy shortages.

Russia, meanwhile, is not only surviving but thriving, acquiring more potency and prestige throughout Asia, Africa and South America than at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

According to the IMF, the Russian economy will grow faster than Germany's or the UK's this year. Next year, it will also grow faster than those of the U.S., Japan, Italy, and much of the rest of the West, its growth in GDP per capita will exceed that of the advanced economies as a whole, and it will achieve the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio among the G20 nations. Russia's unemployment rate of 3.5% is the lowest since the Soviet Union fell. Russia's economic performance -- S&P Global recently confirmed its bullish private sector business confidence -- is all the more remarkable since Russia is simultaneously fighting an expensive proxy war against the combined weight of the armories of the West.

Russia has been able to ramp up its own military production rate so effectively that its artillery can massively out-pound Ukraine's, firing between 40,000 and 50,000 shells per day versus Ukraine's 5,000-6,000. While Russia's arms production is on a high-output war footing, the West's has been unable to keep pace.

Russia's diplomatic standing is also ascendant. While the U.S. succeeded in lobbying Western countries to sanction Russia, sometimes through coercion, its heavy-handedness had the opposite effect elsewhere. In Asia, both China and India have dramatically deepened their ties to Russia. In South America, Russia is embraced by the new socialist government of its largest economy, Brazil, as it was by Brazil's former conservative government. In the Middle East, where the U.S. is widely distrusted, Russia has good relations with Israel as well as with all the major Muslim nations, whether Sunni or Shia, Arab or Turkish. In Africa, where Russia is viewed as the only major European country to eschew colonialism, Russia is widely feted, unlike former colonial powers such as France, whose troops have recently been evicted from Mali and Burkina Faso.

Russia's rise will be news to Western audiences, which for decades have been prey to a demonization of Russia, and since its invasion of Ukraine have been fed a steady diet of Russia's decline. "Business Retreats and Sanctions are Crippling Russian Economy," a Yale School of Management study published last summer, may have been correct in claiming that "Russia has lost companies representing ~40% of its GDP, reversing nearly all of three decades worth of foreign investment," but it failed to anticipate that Russia would quickly recover in a more self-reliant form.

Sorry, but I'm not buying any of the bs some people are posting about Russia being in such great shape. You can post tweets from whomever and propaganda links forever and maybe you'll break the internet, but I'm not buying it. Why? Because I have a decent background in this and it just ain't passing my gut test. Only 3 lines of text; no broken internet.

Now, is Ukraine in great shape? No. Worse than Russia? Probably now (thanks Vlad). The whole area is messed up.