*two minutes later*pic.twitter.com/BA5T7TT022 https://t.co/Puyd1XhkP9

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) July 8, 2026

Continuing and escalating the proxy war in Ukraine is probably Trump's biggest betrayal of what he campaigned on, yet you don't hear a peep about it. He didn't end the war, but he did successfully end Republican opposition to it. https://t.co/s70jQ9eNYX

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) July 8, 2026

sycasey said:

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Really is a shame that Putin decided to start this war.

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NATO chief said the war started in 2014.

Ukraine president Poroshenko boasted in 2015 about bombing the Donbas into submission, and Donbas children having to grow up cowering in their basements.

French President Hollande who was a guarantor said that the Minsk Agreements were a ruse meant to give Ukraine time to rearm and to reattack the Donbas rebels.

Putin proposed a reasonable settlement 2 months into the war in Istanbul, which Ukraine was going to accept, before the UK and Ukrainian nationalists twisted their arm.

But no, it's all about Putin being a bad hombre...

sycasey said:

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Really is a shame that Putin decided to start this war.

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Really is a shame that:

- Globalists
- dummies Jake Sullivan, Lloyd Austin, and Anthony Afghanistan Blinken
- CIA
- dummy, gutless European leaders
- and Victoria 'Darth' Nuland

... decided to provoke this war. Even BHO knew Ukraine was a no-win proposition.

Maybe that's why Trump wanted an unheard of 50% increase in military spending.

It appears Russia has been preparing for war w Europe for a while.

sycasey said:

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Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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Really is a shame that Putin decided to start this war.

---

NATO chief said the war started in 2014.

Ukraine president boasted about bombing the Donbas into submission, and Donbas children having to grow up cowering in their basements.

French President who was a guarantor said that the Minsk Agreements were a ruse meant to give Ukraine time to rearm and to reattack the Donbas rebels.

Putin proposed a reasonable settlement 2 months into the war, which Ukraine was going to accept, before the UK and Ukrainian nationalists twisted their arm.

But no, it's all about Putin being a bad hombre...

---

For some people it started when Putin annexed Crimea and began funding separatist groups in the Donbas, true. Either way it started with an ill-advised invasion by Putin, true.

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Why don't Crimeans have agency and the right to self-determination, the same as any other people in Europe, and for them and the poeple in the Donbas the basic right to speak their native language.

Why would Crimeans want to be subservient to a central government that doesn't respect their basic rights and culture, and that cut off their water supply out of sheer spite, dumping it into the sea instead?

How do you think ethnic Russians in Ukraine feel about nazi war criminals like Bandera being glorified, elevated as founding fathers with major thoroughfares and big statues erected in their honor in every major central Ukrainian city?

What do you think would happen in Quebec, Flanders, the Spanish Basque country or Catalonia if their language was suppressed by the federal government??

You are pretty naive about these matters, European culture and history being completely foreign to you, you are primarily viewing the situation there through cultural and Cold War cliches.

You have no answers to any of the above points, beyond "Putin is a bad hombre".

sycasey 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:

---

Really is a shame that Putin decided to start this war.

---

NATO chief said the war started in 2014.

Ukraine president boasted about bombing the Donbas into submission, and Donbas children having to grow up cowering in their basements.

French President who was a guarantor said that the Minsk Agreements were a ruse meant to give Ukraine time to rearm and to reattack the Donbas rebels.

Putin proposed a reasonable settlement 2 months into the war, which Ukraine was going to accept, before the UK and Ukrainian nationalists twisted their arm.

But no, it's all about Putin being a bad hombre...

---

For some people it started when Putin annexed Crimea and began funding separatist groups in the Donbas, true. Either way it started with an ill-advised invasion by Putin, true.

---

Why don't Crimeans have agency and the right to self-determination, the same as any other people in Europe, and for them and the poeple in the Donbas the basic right to speak their native language.

Why would Crimeans want to be subservient to a central government that doesn't respect their basic rights and culture, and that cut off their water supply out of sheer spite, dumping it into the sea instead?

How do you think ethnic Russians in Ukraine feel about nazi war criminals like Bandera being glorified, elevated as founding fathers with major thoroughfares and big statues erected in their honor in every major central Ukrainian city?

What do you think would happen in Quebec, Flanders, the Spanish Basque country or Catalonia if their language was suppressed by the federal government??

You are pretty naive about these matters, European culture and history being completely foreign to you, you are primarily viewing the situation there through cultural and Cold War cliches.

You have no answers to any of the above points, beyond "Putin is a bad hombre".

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How can we be sure Crimeans wanted this outcome? No vote was held before the invasion, no negotiation with Ukraine. Maybe that should have been the process rather than Putin just taking it by force.

I love how riled up you guys get when I just point out the facts of how this whole thing started. Always bending over backwards to defend Putin when you would never accept the same actions from the US or Israel.

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NATO chief Stoltenberg states unequivocally that the war started in 2014.




3 independent western polls and a referendum confirmed that Crimeans, 80% of whom are of Russian stock and culture, wanted to be part of Russia, as confirmed by many reports from NBC, CNN etc who found that the locals did not want anything to do with the post-Maidan Ukraine.

Crimea was not invaded, almost all of the Ukraine army soldiers stationed there switched allegiance, same as in the Donbas, where local Ukraine army regulars turned against the Kiev government which was bombarding their cities.

Less than 2% of Ukrainians killed by Russia were civilians, whereas over 90% of Gazans killed by Israel were civilians, the majority being women and children. NO COMPARISON WHATSOEVER.

sycasey 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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sycasey said:

---

Really is a shame that Putin decided to start this war.

---

NATO chief said the war started in 2014.

Ukraine president boasted about bombing the Donbas into submission, and Donbas children having to grow up cowering in their basements.

French President who was a guarantor said that the Minsk Agreements were a ruse meant to give Ukraine time to rearm and to reattack the Donbas rebels.

Putin proposed a reasonable settlement 2 months into the war, which Ukraine was going to accept, before the UK and Ukrainian nationalists twisted their arm.

But no, it's all about Putin being a bad hombre...

---

For some people it started when Putin annexed Crimea and began funding separatist groups in the Donbas, true. Either way it started with an ill-advised invasion by Putin, true.

---

Why don't Crimeans have agency and the right to self-determination, the same as any other people in Europe, and for them and the poeple in the Donbas the basic right to speak their native language.

Why would Crimeans want to be subservient to a central government that doesn't respect their basic rights and culture, and that cut off their water supply out of sheer spite, dumping it into the sea instead?

How do you think ethnic Russians in Ukraine feel about nazi war criminals like Bandera being glorified, elevated as founding fathers with major thoroughfares and big statues erected in their honor in every major central Ukrainian city?

What do you think would happen in Quebec, Flanders, the Spanish Basque country or Catalonia if their language was suppressed by the federal government??

You are pretty naive about these matters, European culture and history being completely foreign to you, you are primarily viewing the situation there through cultural and Cold War cliches.

You have no answers to any of the above points, beyond "Putin is a bad hombre".

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How can we be sure Crimeans wanted this outcome? No vote was held before the invasion, no negotiation with Ukraine. Maybe that should have been the process rather than Putin just taking it by force.

I love how riled up you guys get when I just point out the facts of how this whole thing started. Always bending over backwards to defend Putin when you would never accept the same actions from the US or Israel.

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NATO chief Stoltenberg states unequivocally that the war started in 2014.




3 independent western polls and a referendum confirmed that Crimeans, 80% of whom are of Russian stock and culture, wanted to be part of Russia, as confirmed by many reports from NBC, CNN etc who found that the locals did not want anything to do with the post-Maidan Ukraine.

Crimea was not invaded, almost all of the Ukraine army soldiers stationed there switched allegiance, same as in the Donbas, where local Ukraine army regulars turned against the Kiev government which was bombarding their cities.

Less than 2% of Ukrainians killed by Russia were civilians, whereas over 90% of Gazans killed by Israel were civilians, the majority being women and children. NO COMPARISON WHATSOEVER.

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If the US went in somewhere (let's say Vancouver, Canada) and seized the territory from another country while claiming they were really "culturally American" and then after the fact started citing polls claiming that a majority of the people wanted to be Americans so it's okay we did that . . . you would never accept that as a valid action. You only defend it when it's Putin.

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Certain Canadian provinces like Quebec and Alberta have independence movements. If a provincial referendum results in a majority wanting to secede from Canada, the process would start. Quebec had 2 such referendums since the 1970s, both failed.

In Crimea however over 90% voted in the referendum to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, and those results were confirmed by at least 3 major western independent polls.

Quote:

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The results of a survey by the U.S. government Broadcasting Board of Governors agency, conducted April 2129, 2014, showed that 83% of Crimeans felt that the results of the March 16 referendum on Crimea's status likely reflected the views of most people there, whereas this view is shared only by 30% in the rest of Ukraine.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum#cite_note-138][132]
[/url]
Gallup conducted an immediate post-referendum survey of Ukraine and Crimea and published their results in April 2014. Gallup reported that, among the population of Crimea, 93.6% of ethnic Russians and 68.4% of ethnic Ukrainians believed the referendum result accurately represents the will of the Crimean people. Only 1.7% of ethnic Russians and 14.5% of ethnic Ukrainians living in Crimea thought that the referendum results did not accurately reflect the views of the Crimean people.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum#cite_note-139][133][/url] According to Gallup's survey performed on April 2127, 82.8% of Crimean people consider the referendum results reflecting most Crimeans' views,[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum#cite_note-Gallup-140][134][/url] and 73.9% of Crimeans say Crimea's becoming part of Russia will make life better for themselves and their families, while 5.5% disagree.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum#cite_note-Gallup-140][134]
[/url]
In May 2014, Washington, D.C., pollster Pew Research published results of a survey that encompassed Crimea, Ukraine, and Russia, in which it was reported that 88% of Crimeans believed the government of Kyiv should officially recognize the result of Crimea's referendum.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum#cite_note-141][135][/url] According to survey carried out by Pew Research Center in April 2014, the majority of Crimean residents say they believed the referendum was free and fair (91%) and that the government in Kyiv ought to recognize the results of the vote (88%).[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum#cite_note-142][136][/url]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum#Pre-referendum

I have facts on my side, you have vintage Cold War anti-Russian stereotypes that completely ignore the cultural and historical aspects of this war.

sycasey said:

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movielover said:

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You're trying to thread some rhetorical needle.

Where has the Crimea uprising been the past ten years?

Where are the Crimean freedom fighters?

Where is the popular opposition party?

Where is the referendum to rejoin Ukraine?

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Russia has an authoritarian government that would suppress any such efforts, if they existed.

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Pew Research poll : 91% of Crimean residents say they believed the referendum was free and fair.

You are culturally biased into believing that the Russians are inherently evil.

You're also ignoring the fact that the Kiev government actively suppressed its Russian minorities, often using far right militias, as in the Odessa protests of May 2014 where over 50 unarmed pro-Russian protestors were burned alive or beaten to death.

dajo9 said:

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Cal88 said:

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sycasey said:

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movielover said:

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You're trying to thread some rhetorical needle.

Where has the Crimea uprising been the past ten years?

Where are the Crimean freedom fighters?

Where is the popular opposition party?

Where is the referendum to rejoin Ukraine?

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Russia has an authoritarian government that would suppress any such efforts, if they existed.

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Pew Research poll : 91% of Crimean residents say they believed the referendum was free and fair.

You are culturally biased into believing that the Russians are inherently evil.

You're also ignoring the fact that the Kiev government actively suppressed its Russian minorities, often using far right militias, as in the Odessa protests of May 2014 where over 50 unarmed pro-Russian protestors were burned alive or beaten to death.

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The Russian government is inherently evil. Don't spin it.

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The majority of Russians would disagree with you, as would the great majority of Crimeans. You're not familiar with recent Russian history, in particular post-Soviet history.

You're also very naive to think NATO has the best intentions for Russia, the goal of the NATO hawks is to dismember Russia and recapture its resources, as was done in the 1990s, and Ukraine is being used as a tool to precipitate regime change in Russia.

Here we have that particular moment when Kaja Kallas, EU High Representative (the second most important position in the EU) was openly declaring that the goal of the West should be to break Russia into smaller parts...... pic.twitter.com/kn9dj5oPup

— Richard (@ricwe123) July 4, 2026

Brzezinski also advocated breaking up Russia in 4-5 parts in his seminal book "Grand Chessboard".

When Crimea flipped sides in a bloodless transition, I was at a trade show here in the Bay. I met a slim sexy woman who was from Crimea. She seemed completely fine with joining Russia. My biggest recollection was that she thought it wasn't that big of a deal. Granted, views of one aren't a random sample. She had no concern whatsoever about her family, and actually thought it might help their development.

Wiki: "Crimea is populated by an ethnic Russian majority and a minority of both ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, and thus demographically possessed one of Ukraine's largest ethnically Russian populations."

In the early 90s I had a friend at Cal who was from Odessa, she introduced herself as Russian.

sycasey 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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sycasey said:

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movielover said:

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You're trying to thread some rhetorical needle.

Where has the Crimea uprising been the past ten years?

Where are the Crimean freedom fighters?

Where is the popular opposition party?

Where is the referendum to rejoin Ukraine?

---

Russia has an authoritarian government that would suppress any such efforts, if they existed.

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Pew Research poll : 91% of Crimean residents say they believed the referendum was free and fair.

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They know what they need to say.

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You're confirming the worst Cold War cliches about Russia, you were raised on Boris and Natasha cartoons and Ivan Drago. Unfortunately I can't undo decades of Cold War propaganda with basic facts.

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The most basic fact is that Russia invaded Ukraine and continues to do so to this day. I don't need any Cold War narratives to spin that into a negative for Russia and Putin.

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What you need is a basic course in the history of Ukraine and its basic cultural makeup.



If it wasn't for this thread, you wouldn't even know who Bandera was.

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Why do you think that repeatedly posting this map will convince me that an invasion was justified?

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The map is important simply because early on before the civil war started in 2014, most of the people in the yellow and brown areas had a separate Ukrainian-Russian/Donbas identity, but since then they have been persecuted as Russians by the central government, so they have outright rejected their association with Ukraine.

These people like all others strongly reject restrictions on their language and as children and grandchildren of veterans who fought and died in large numbers against the nazis, they deeply resent elevating their grandparents' nazi enemies as their founding fathers and the Kyiv regime ban on memorials for local soldiers who died fighting the nazis.

You have never addressed the fact that since the 2014 Maidan coup Bandera, Shukhevych and other Ukrainian nazis have been honored with literally hundreds of NEW monuments and streets named after them across central and western Ukraine, and this is something that is completely intolerable for the great majority of Russian Ukrainians who have lived in eastern and southern Ukraine for generations.

Quote:

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In the years since the Maidan uprising brought a new government to Ukraine in 2014, numerous monuments to Nazi collaborators and Holocaust perpetrators have been erected, at times as frequently as a new one each week. Due to the overwhelming number of streets named after Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, only some are listed as part of this project.

https://forward.com/news/462916/nazi-collaborator-monuments-in-ukraine/

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Quote:

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As I said, if the shoe were on the other foot and the US were doing the exact same thing you would never apologize for it like you do for Putin. Only he gets this charity from you.

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I have no problem condemning hostile foreign invasions like the Soviet occupation of countries like Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia etc. In the case of eastern and southern Ukraine though, the situation is not as simplistic as you understand it, in fact it is the opposite of how you see it.

sycasey said:

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The most basic fact is that Russia invaded Ukraine and continues to do so to this day. I don't need any Cold War narratives to spin that into a negative for Russia and Putin.

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It's here! THEIR BLOOD, OUR BULLETS by Aaron Maté is now available for pre-order!

In this bombshell investigation, years in the making, @aaronjmate exposes Washington’s professed support for Ukrainian sovereignty and democracy as a shamhttps://t.co/lclm1znEjU pic.twitter.com/S9WXcxp5y2

— OR Books (@orbooks) July 8, 2026

tequila4kapp 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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movielover said:

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You're trying to thread some rhetorical needle.

Where has the Crimea uprising been the past ten years?

Where are the Crimean freedom fighters?

Where is the popular opposition party?

Where is the referendum to rejoin Ukraine?

---

Russia has an authoritarian government that would suppress any such efforts, if they existed.

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Pew Research poll : 91% of Crimean residents say they believed the referendum was free and fair.

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They know what they need to say.

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You're confirming the worst Cold War cliches about Russia, you were raised on Boris and Natasha cartoons and Ivan Drago. Unfortunately I can't undo decades of Cold War propaganda with basic facts.

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IMO there have been way more than enough hotel window accidents, tea pot incidences and other wacky coincidences that resulted in people on Putin's naughty list pushing up daisies that Sycasey may be on to something here.

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Has anyone gone to the train station?

NATO FA and FO.

Theodore Postol, emeritus professor, argues that the Patriot 3 missile defense has a maximum success rate of 3%. When one official asked what "intercepted" meant, it meant a missile and a scud passing in the same vicinity. This, on top of the modern missile technology and drone low-cost decoys.

He previously argued the Patriot missiles in the Gulf War were 0% effective.

Probably a very low end estimate, perhaps of older Patriot missile models and/or newer types of Iranian missiles. It could be as high as 25% but not much higher. He does a good job of explaining the challenge of intercepting ballistic missiles.

I'm pretty sure todays patriots are closer to 89% success rate. Really you only want to fire them when its a large missile with a big payload incoming. But the issue is drones overwhelm existing missile defense and then these need to be used or the drones will destroy them. I know the defense industry has a few drone defense platforms already being used, it just needs to be many more and its such a new technology that it takes awhile to get them in production.

MinotStateBeav said:

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I'm pretty sure todays patriots are closer to 89% success rate. Really you only want to fire them when its a large missile with a big payload incoming. But the issue is drones overwhelm existing missile defense and then these need to be used or the drones will destroy them. I know the defense industry has a few drone defense platforms already being used, it just needs to be many more and its such a new technology that it takes awhile to get them in production.

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89% success rate against drones or even subsonic cruise missiles maybe, but no way against ballistic missiles.

On another subject abot the Ukraine war, this is a very important piece of the puzzle for guys like Sycasey that helps provide important context to the start of the war back in 2014, when Kiev was indiscriminately bombing Donbas cities like Donetsk, the largest city in the region:

CNN and other western outlets were reporting about these bombings back then.

Hornet drones made in USA by a company owned by Cal alum Eric Schmidt programmed to hit civilian targets in Russia.

Un Hornet parfaitement capturé intact après un atterrissage forcé par les soldats russes a révélé la véritable nature des terroristes des forces armées ukrainiennes.

🔹Les spécialistes russes ont réussi à brouiller ses signaux et à le faire atterrir en parfait état de marche. Ce… pic.twitter.com/9YsgSaeQfx

— InfodefenseFRANCE (@InfodefenseFR) July 13, 2026

Translated from French
A Hornet perfectly captured intact after a forced landing by Russian soldiers has revealed the true nature of the terrorists in the Ukrainian armed forces.

Russian specialists managed to jam its signals and force it to land in perfect working order. This drone is manufactured by the American company Swift Beat LLC, owned by Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google.

It is a fixed-wing kamikaze drone equipped with a guidance system incorporating elements of artificial intelligence. This type of drone is capable of autonomously selecting its target. The "Hornets" are used, among other things, to disrupt logistics lines heading toward Crimea.

The "brain" of the Hornet, neutralized using electronic warfare means, was immediately sent for analysis. The findings made there shocked even the experts.

The program included not only military targets (combat tanks, armored vehicles, troop transports, etc.). Normally, when the drone's battery is about to run out, it is supposed to crash and self-destruct. However, the designers added buses, ambulances, fire trucks, and even ordinary civilians to the target list. And this is so that the explosive payload would not be "wasted."

This is why the "Hornets" strike civilian transports, buses carrying children, and other non-military targets. It is Ukraine that developed and implements this software modification.

This constitutes tangible proof that the Ukrainian side deliberately programs its drones to attack civilian targets.