patrick.net

AmericanKulak says

And the Russian Orthodox Church ascribed to by 1/4 of the population of Ukraine.

Good riddance
They are controlled from Moskau

Bd6r says

AmericanKulak says

And the Russian Orthodox Church ascribed to by 1/4 of the population of Ukraine.

Good riddance
They are controlled from Moskau

So Ukraine is not a Democratic Country in need of Defense.

You can't ban a religion held by double digit % of your country, and has been for generations, and then claim you're a Liberal* Democratic Republic.

*In the Enlightenment sense

Bd6r says

AmericanKulak says

And the Russian Orthodox Church ascribed to by 1/4 of the population of Ukraine.

Good riddance
They are controlled from Moskau

And Catholic clergy are controlled from Rome. Should we ban them?

Patrick says

And Catholic clergy are controlled from Rome. Should we ban them?

Is Rome bombing USA?
If yes, I'd say lets ban.

Bd6r says

Patrick says

And Catholic clergy are controlled from Rome. Should we ban them?

Is Rome bombing USA?
If yes, I'd say lets ban.

The clergy and their followers have zero to do with it. This is a territorial conflict that has nothing to do with religion. zelinsky is a us stooge dictator muppet, plain and simple, not a iota better than his Russian counterpart. How many Americans are going to die because the money the US could have spent on border security and the fentanyl crisis instead went to this corrupt muppet. It's time to come to the table and push a diplomatic solution or cut off this corrupt stooge

mell says

It's time to come to the table and push a diplomatic solution or cut off this corrupt stooge

Zelensky is not the problem.

Our congress, and intelligence agencies are the problem. Without their direct support, Zelensky would have LONG ago taken a diplomatic solution. We don't have foreign problems, we have domestic ones.

If there was not war between Russia and Ukraine, do you think our government as it currently is would be spending money on border security instead? They won't even clean up Flint Michigan.

richwicks says

mell says

It's time to come to the table and push a diplomatic solution or cut off this corrupt stooge

Zelensky is not the problem.

Our congress, and intelligence agencies are the problem. Without their direct support, Zelensky would have LONG ago taken a diplomatic solution. We don't have foreign problems, we have domestic ones.

If there was not war between Russia and Ukraine, do you think our government as it currently is would be spending money on border security instead? They won't even clean up Flint Michigan.

Once you create a stooge they often come back and haunt you. How often did the US install someone who then eventually went autonomous on them. It's time to cut him off, the US may not do it, maybe Europeans will rise up and demand diplomacy. This has gone on unchecked for too long

mell says

Once you create a stooge they often come back and haunt you. How often did the US install someone who then eventually went autonomous on them. It's time to cut him off, the US may not do it, maybe Europeans will rise up and demand diplomacy. This has gone on unchecked for too long

Zelenskyy is doing precisely what he's being told to do. He's not "rogue".

He's got not real support in Ukraine. The MOMENT he goes "rogue", he'll be assassinated and replaced with another puppet. The United States wants war with Russia and has been pushing for it for 20 years.

richwicks says

mell says

Once you create a stooge they often come back and haunt you. How often did the US install someone who then eventually went autonomous on them. It's time to cut him off, the US may not do it, maybe Europeans will rise up and demand diplomacy. This has gone on unchecked for too long

Zelenskyy is doing precisely what he's being told to do. He's not "rogue".

He's got not real support in Ukraine. The MOMENT he goes "rogue", he'll be assassinated and replaced with another puppet. The United States wants war with Russia and has been pushing for it for 20 years.

You don't know that. You're just speculating. It looks like so far they are in line, but ultimately we don't know. Sure the US has means to deal with it, but it's important to realize that he is part of the problem as well. The US is less potent than it once was, the lesser it meddles and instead builds itself back up the better. Never underestimate the hubris and miscalculations of the administration

mell says

You don't know that. You're just speculating. It looks like so far they are in line, but ultimately we don't know. Sure the US has means to deal with it, but it's important to realize that he is part of the problem as well. The US is less potent than it once was, the lesser it meddles and instead builds itself back up the better.

The people that instigated this war don't give care about the United States. It's being done for the Jewish mafia, UK energy conglomerates, and for direct funding by people in the government that are being bribed. Only ONE of those cares about actually beating Russia.

mell says

Never underestimate the hubris and miscalculations of the administration

Their only real arrogance is that they don't believe the public will ever realize they are just a group of criminal gangs working on behalf of their own interests. 1/2 the country is really dumb enough to think that this war is over "humanitarian reasons", while children starve to death in Yemen, and Libya buys and sells literal slaves. They have to laugh about that plenty.

mell says

The clergy and their followers have zero to do with it.

Other than a number of them being on Russian intelligence agency payroll.
How about various Chinese organizations paying off US persons? Should they be allowed to operate in US?

mell says

How many Americans are going to die because the money the US could have spent on border security and the fentanyl crisis instead went to this corrupt muppet.

Are you so naive to think that after war in Ukraine stops our illustrious political class will spend money wasted in Ukraine on border and fentanyl prevention? Or they will start another war, bail out banksters for the n-th time wit 10x more money they spend on Ukraine, or something similar?

Bd6r says

mell says

How many Americans are going to die because the money the US could have spent on border security and the fentanyl crisis instead went to this corrupt muppet.

Are you so naive to think that after war in Ukraine stops our illustrious political class will spend money wasted in Ukraine on border and fentanyl prevention? Or they will start another war, bail out banksters for the n-th time wit 10x more money they spend on Ukraine, or something similar?

Maybe, maybe not, but that doesn't mean we should impoverish the country sooner and faster, and risk a bigger and longer war in Europe. Diplomacy now is the way to go and has been for a while, not warmongering. Or this regime change bs

mell says

Diplomacy now is the way to go and has been for a while

Ask Chechens how it worked out for them

Bd6r says

mell says

Diplomacy now is the way to go and has been for a while

Ask Chechens how it worked out for them

only chechen i knew of blew up Boston… they don’t strike me as conversational types.

A bit of Russian propaganda from our friends at RT:


original link

richwicks says

A bit of Russian propaganda from our friends at RT:


original link

wow thats heavy

i don’t like we guving money to their fucked up evil corrupt government. watched an interview with that marine who was there. its even more upsetting. because we are whst we support, and we support some very fucked up people.

BTW, whatever happened to all those NATO troops and NATO generals that were trapped in the factory in Mariupol?

Ceffer?

Off topic, but notice how fast Croatia got NATO and EU membership, and how all the Croat Yugoslav War Criminals are always hiding out in Spain, the evidence is always destroyed, and the Hague Court bends over backwards to help their defense.

AmericanKulak says

Off topic, but notice how fast Croatia got NATO and EU membership

German payoff for "help" in WW2 or perhaps nostalgy for Austro Hungarian Empire in many Central European countries.

Great summary! But you left off the puppet strings.

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/forecast-2023-get-out-of-the-way-if-you-cant-lend-a-hand/

In 2011, relations between the US and Russia soured when President Putin accused the US of fomenting protests in Russia over its parliamentary elections. And from there, our State Department decided that Russia and the USA could not even pretend to be friendly.

Jump ahead to 2014: Neocons in the Obama administration figured it was time to cut Russia back down to size. That effort crystalized around the former Soviet province, Ukraine, and blossomed into the US-sponsored-and-organized Maidan Revolution, utilizing Ukraine’s sizeable Stepan Bandara legacy Nazi forces in the vanguard, to foment violence in Kiev’s main city square. The US shoved out elected Ukraine President Yanukovych — who angered America by pledging to join Russia’s Custom’s Union instead of the EU — and installed its own puppet Yatsenyuk, who was ultimately replaced by the candy tycoon, Poroshenko, replaced by the Ukrainian TV star, comedian Volodymyr Zelensky. Ha Ha. Who’s laughing now? (Nobody.)

From 2014-on, Ukraine, with America’s backing, did everything possible to antagonize Russia, especially showering the eastern provinces of Ukraine, called the Donbas, with artillery, rockets, and bombs to harass the Russia-leaning population there. After eight years of that, and continued American insults (the Steele Dossier, 2016 election interference), and renewed threats to drag Ukraine into NATO, Mr. Putin had enough and launched his “Special Military Operation” to discipline Ukraine. Once that started, American Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated explicitly to the world that America’s general policy now was to “weaken Russia.”

That was accompanied by America’s policy to isolate Russia economically with ever more sanctions. Didn’t work. Russia just turned eastward to the enormous Asian market for its oil and gas and utilized an alternate electronic trade-clearance system to replace America’s SWIFT system. Sanctions also gave Russia a reason to aggressively pursue an import-replacement economic strategy — manufacturing stuff that they had been buying from the West, for instance, German machine tools critical for industry.

Russia did sacrifice more than $50-billion in financial assets stranded in the US banking system — we just confiscated it — but, ultimately, that only harmed the US banking system’s reputation as a safe place to park money, and made foreign investors much more wary of stashing capital in American banks. Net effect: the value of the ruble increased and stabilized and Russia found new ways to neutralize American economic bullying.

Europe was the big loser in all that. For a while, Europe could pretend to go along with the US / NATO project, pouring arms and money into Ukraine, and at the same time depend on Russian oil and gas imports. Eight months into the conflict, the US blew up the Nord Stream One and Two pipelines, and that was the end of Europe’s supply of affordable natgas, to heat homes and power industry. In a sane world, that would have been considered an act of war against Germany by the USA. But it only revealed the secret, humiliating state of vassalage that Europe was in. Europe had already made itself ridiculous buying into the hysteria over climate change and attempting to tailor its energy use to so-called “renewables” in history’s biggest virtue-signaling exercise. Germany, the engine of the EU’s economy, made one dumb mistake after another. It invested heavily in wind and solar installations, which fell so short of adequacy they were a joke, and it closed down its nuke-powered electric generation plants so as to appear ecologically correct.

So now, Germany, and many other EU member states, teeter on the edge of leaving Modernity behind. They managed to scramble and fill their gas reserves sufficiently this fall to perhaps squeak through winter without freezing to death, but not without a lot of sacrifice, chopping down Europe’s forests, and wearing their coats indoors. Now, only a few days into Winter, it remains to be seen how that will work out. We’ll know more in March of the new year. France had been the exception in Europe, due to its large fleet of atomic energy plants. But many of them have now aged-out, some shut down altogether, and “green” politics stood in the way of replacing them, so France, too, will find itself increasingly subject to affordable energy shortages. ...

The USA poured over $100-billion into Ukraine in arms, goods, and cash in 2022. That largesse will not continue as America sinks into its Second Great Depression. In any case, much of that schwag was fobbed off with. The arms are spent, the launchers destroyed. A lot of weapons were trafficked around to other countries and non-state actors. Russia is going to prevail in Ukraine. The news emanating from American media about Ukraine’s military triumphs was all propaganda. There was hardly ever any real doubt that Russia dominated the war zone strategically and tactically. Even its withdrawals from one city or another were tactically intelligent and worthwhile, sparing Russian lives. The Special Military Operation wasn’t a cakewalk because Russia wanted to avoid killing civilians and refrain from destroying infrastructure that would leave Ukraine a gutted, failed state. Over time, the USA proved itself to be negotiation-unworthy, and Ukraine’s president Zelensky refused to entertain rational terms for settling the crisis. So, now the gloves are off in Ukraine. As of December 29, Russia shut off the lights in Kiev and Lvov.

The open questions: how much punishment does Ukraine seek to suffer before it capitulates? Will Zelensky survive? (Even if he runs off to Miami, he may not survive.) What exactly will be left of Ukraine? In 2023 Russia will decide the disposition of things on-the-ground. Failed states make terrible neighbors. One would imagine that Russia’s main goal is to set up a rump Ukraine that can function, but cease to be an annoying pawn of its antagonists. Ukraine will no longer enjoy access to the Black Sea; it will be landlocked. The best case would be for Ukraine to revert to the agricultural backwater it was for centuries before the mighty disruptions of the modern era. Perhaps Russia will take it over altogether and govern it as it had ever since the 1700s — except for Ukraine’s brief interlude post-USSR as one of the world’s most corrupt and mal-administered sovereign states.

Bottom line: Ukraine is and always was within Russia’s sphere-of-influence, and will remain so. The USA has no business there and it will be best for all concerned when we bug out. Let’s hope that happens without America triggering a nuclear World War Three. (Yeah, “hope” is not a plan. Try prayer, then.) Mr. Putin’s challenge going into 2023 is to conclude the Ukraine hostilities without humiliating the USA to the degree that we do something really stupid.

Patrick says

Mr. Putin’s challenge going into 2023 is to conclude the Ukraine hostilities without humiliating the USA to the degree that we do something really stupid.

Dude is on crack. That is Putin's only challenge in 2023? Winning Ukraine so bigly as to not humiliate the USA?

As if Russia isn't already an international laughing stock and pariah after showing the whole world what a shit-show of a military it has after their abortion of an invasion in Ukraine?

Bizarro world stuff.

I doubt Russia is afraid of the US doing something stupid.

Russian Center of Gravity since around 900AD Lake Ladoga towns -> Kiev/Konugard -> Vladimir -> Moscow

Ukraine hasn't been a functional country in 800 years. It was crushed by the Golden Horde and ruled direct, unlike forested Northern Russia which was tribuatory.

AmericanKulak says

Russian Center of Gravity since around 900AD Lake Ladoga towns -> Kiev/Konugard -> Vladimir -> Moscow

Ukraine hasn't been a functional country in 800 years. It was crushed by the Golden Horde and ruled direct, unlike forested Northern Russia which was tribuatory.

Huh? Ukraine was a part of Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1362. Moscow was Golden Horde's bitch and paid tributes up until 1480, i.e. was Tatar's bitch 120 years longer. And then while the former went on electing their leaders and penning a Constitution (some 70 years before American one) the latter enslaved their own people and were ruled by an absolute monarchy.

original link

It's not the "liberators" doing that. That's Ukraine's civil war.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/wait-second-merkel-did-what

Article provides two sources both involved in the Minsk Agreements (Merkel being the better known one) that the West never had any intention of honoring the accords, it was only to buy time for Ukraine to build up it's military.

Ukraine Loans Might Not Be Paid Back!