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LOL! Doesn't even look like after the partition Kiev will ever be able to afford primo coke for the leaders again.
If Ukraine is in NATO, the United States should be out, plain and simple.
A decision that could trigger the next world war cannot be made by transnational elites, unaccountable to any country or its citizens. As the body tasked with providing advice and consent on additions to the North Atlantic Treaty, the road to Ukraine’s NATO membership runs through the U.S. Senate. If we are serious about preserving U.S. hegemony, at no point can our nation be forced by a dependent Europe to accept the risk of nuclear escalation. We must draw a redline with NATO: You can have Ukraine or the United States. If allied boots hit the ground in Ukraine, we should walk away from NATO entirely.
In the meantime, perhaps someone should remind Jens Stoltenberg that his job is to be a steward of the strategic interests of NATO’s dues-paying members, not a shill for Ukraine. As the largest financial backer of the alliance, it is time the U.S. prioritizes participation in NATO according to our core strategic interests. WWIII is not on the agenda, and it is far past time for the United States to close NATO’s open door.
Yo Ukie Nazi Fluffers of PatNet!
But how do you jive this with the bullshit you post that Russia is too incompetent to fight this war?
Finally, it must have driven the Ukraine-flag-in-bio people crazy that the Times respectfully reported a Putin speech without once calling him a war criminal. In fact, maybe it’s my imagination, but ever since the CIA coughed up its private Ukrainian army in that historic Times exclusive a few weeks back, it seems like our own local C&C comments Ukrainian cheerleading team has been strangely restrained.
The part of his speech the Times left out is when Putin said Russia had already been approached by some Western negotiators trying to convince Russia to “pause” the fighting to allow room for peace negotiations. Putin reasonably said they won’t pause, why would they, right when Ukraine is running out of ammunition? Putin also said he trusts “none of them” — meaning the West. Why should he?
Assuming Putin was telling the truth about being approached for peace talks (and why would he lie about that?), this is the first public confirmation that the West has blinked. As it should have. It’s the first confirmation that, despite Biden’s crazy escalatory rhetoric, the West is trying to make a deal. The problem is the West wants a deal that will allows it to claim a political victory. Like Putin said, the Proxy War was always more about politics. But it’s about survival for Russia.
CNN—
Russia is entering its third year of war in Ukraine with an unprecedented amount of cash in government coffers, bolstered by a record $37 billion of crude oil sales to India last year, according to new analysis, which concludes that some of the crude was refined by India and then exported to the United States as oil products worth more than $1 billion.
The analysis by the CREA estimated the US was the biggest buyer of refined products from India made from Russian crude last year, worth $1.3 billion between early December 2022, when the price cap was introduced, and the end of 2023. The organization’s estimates are based on publicly available shipping and energy data.
The value of these oil product exports rises significantly once US allies that are also enforcing sanctions against Russia are included. The CREA estimated that $9.1 billion worth of oil products made from Russian crude was imported by these nations in 2023, a 44% increase from the year before.
Moscow has found means to enrich itself off this refining and export process too. One of the Indian refineries and ports accepting Russian crude is in Vadinar, and run by a company called Nayara Energy, which is 49.1% -owned by Russian state oil giant Rosneft. The CREA estimated that the US imported $63 million worth of oil products refined in Vadinar in 2023, and that about half the crude used in the plant was Russian. All of which is entirely above board.
But the organization’s report added that exports from Vadinar “lead to significant tax revenues for the Kremlin in the form of taxing the exported Russian crude oil” and also via the profits made by Rosneft from the refining and resale to Moscow’s Western opponents.
Still, analysts say the profits that can be made from even the smallest evasion of sanctions against Russia are vast, because of the significant sums involved in trading a single oil tanker’s cargo. “Really you’re talking about something which is amazingly lucrative,” said Daniel at Windward. “The temptation to do that… is absolutely huge for the traders. They could just make $10 to 40 million within four or five months. I’m not sure there’s any other opportunity in the world to do that.”
🔥 Yesterday, CNN ran a totally unbiased headline, “Putin extends one man-rule in Russia after stage-managed election devoid of credible opposition.” I wonder what CNN really thought about it? Anyway, Putin won 88% of the popular vote in a same-day election yesterday. (No early or mail-in voting.) The vote predictably showed that Russians don’t want to change presidents in the middle of a war with NATO — whoops! sorry! — I meant in the middle of a war with Ukraine.
And it only took the Russians a few hours to count their ballots.
Laughably, every single Western leader criticized the Russian election. Most hilariously, that included Joseph Robinette Biden, who himself was “elected” in a drawn-out, slow-motion electoral disaster that was mangled, delayed, ballot-harvested, water-main-broked, mailed-in, extra-ballots-found, midnight-spiked, counting-room-windows blocked, election-observers rejected, and otherwise totally mucked up beyond any semblance of a believable election process.
Joe had the nerve to call Russia’s election fake. Once I stopped laughing about that, I started laughing all over again, because I realized that in other words, Joe Biden is now an election denier. So.
I have been informed by serious, fretful news commenters — many times — that “interfering” with an election — like by making Hillary Clinton memes — is a danger to our democracy. Interfering in any way is literally the worst possible thing a free citizen can do. Many good citizens, including veterans, first responders, and grandmas, are right now languishing in the shiv wings of many federal prisons, for interfering with the 2020 election by walking slowly through the Capitol rotunda taking selfies.
Even denying the validity of an election is grounds for Facebook termination with prejudice and for getting jammed on an FBI watchlist. But apparently, not if you’re denying Russia’s election. It hasn’t even been a full day yet, but somehow they already know Putin’s re-election was a fraud. Who needs evidence? It just was!
But it’s even funnier than that. Okay, it’s dark humor, since it includes a lot of newly-deceased Ukrainians. Over the weekend, right before Russia’s voting day, Ukraine — directed by NATO war planners — launched its biggest action since its failed Glorious 2023 Spring Counteroffensive. All along the border, Ukraine shot missiles, launched drones, and invaded with over 50 tanks, countless other vehicles, and over 5,000 men — attacking civilian targets related to the election, including polling places.
At first, Ukraine denied it had anything to do with the massive attack on Russia’s election infrastructure. Ukraine said hey, it wasn’t them, it was an organized resistance inside Russia who oppose Putin and the war. But then the Russians walloped the invading army, and pictures started popping up on social media showing wrecked, U.S.-made Bradley fighting vehicles, and Ukraine had to stop pretending it was a civil war.
Apparently the geniuses in NATO’s planning bunker thought it was a good idea to massacre thousands of Ukrainians and sacrifice massive amounts of material trying to manufacture a fake civil war on the border, a ‘civil war’ that nobody would have believed anyway. And then, predictably, sitting back in their safe base in Poland or wherever, NATO’s imbecilic generals just got everyone killed, and the Russians shot down all their missiles and drones and the whole thing backfired and just made Russian voters madder so they voted even more for Putin.
So I say, let’s get the January 6th prisoners out of jail to make room for the NATO generals who planned all this election interference. Which is apparently even worse than their war crimes of deliberately targeting civilian election infrastructure.
Have you noticed how quickly our Ukraine problem went away, vanished, phhhhttttt? At least from the top of US news media websites. The original idea, as cooked-up by departed State Department strategist Victoria Nuland, was to make Ukraine a problem for Russia, but instead we made it a problem for everybody else, especially ourselves in the USA, since it looked like an attempt to kick-start World War Three. Now she is gone, but the plans she laid apparently live on.
Our Congress so far has resisted coughing up another $60-billion for the Ukraine project — most of it to be laundered through Raytheon (RTX), General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin — so instead “Joe Biden” sent Ukraine's President Zelensky a few reels of Laurel and Hardy movies. The result was last week’s prank: four groups of mixed Ukraine troops and mercenaries drawn from sundry NATO members snuck across the border into Russia’s Belgorod region to capture a nuclear weapon storage facility while Russia held its presidential election. I suppose it looked good on the war-gaming screen.
Alas, the raid was a fiasco. Russian intel was on it like white-on-rice. The raiders met ferocious resistance and retreated into a Russian mine-field — this was the frontier, you understand, between Kharkov (Ukr) and Belgorod (Rus) — where they were annihilated. The Russian election concluded Sunday without further incident. V.V. Putin, running against three other candidates from fractional parties, won with 87 percent of the vote. He’s apparently quite popular.
“Joe Biden,” not so much here, where he is pretending to run for reelection with a party pretending to go along with the gag. Ukraine is lined up to become Afghanistan Two, another gross embarrassment for the US foreign policy establishment and “JB” personally. So, how long do you think V. Zelensky will be bopping around Kiev like Al Pacino in Scarface?
This time, poor beleaguered Ukraine won’t need America’s help plotting a coup. When that happens, as it must, since Mr. Z has nearly destroyed his country, and money from the USA for government salaries and pensions did not arrive on-time, there will be peace talks between his successors and Mr. Putin’s envoys. The optimum result for all concerned — including NATO, whether the alliance knows it or not — will be a demilitarized Ukraine, allowed to try being a nation again, though in a much-reduced condition than prior to its becoming a US bear-poking stick. It will be on a short leash within Russia’s sphere-of-influence, where it has, in fact, resided for centuries, and life will go on. Thus, has Russia at considerable cost, had to reestablish the status quo.
The optimum result for all concerned — including NATO, whether the alliance knows it or not — will be a demilitarized Ukraine, allowed to try being a nation again, though in a much-reduced condition than prior to its becoming a US bear-poking stick. It will be on a short leash within Russia’s sphere-of-influence, where it has, in fact, resided for centuries, and life will go on. Thus, has Russia at considerable cost, had to reestablish the status quo.
That's where his logic falls apart. Precisely because of Russia's considerable cost, that option is most likely off the table now.
Or if it is, it will be in name only: much like Eastern Europe was in the Soviet Era. Nominally independent countries with Russian military bases in them to keep them in line, like Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslavakia in 1968.
Russian fluffers are finally beginning to grudgingly admit that Russia has suffered "considerable cost"
Despite Ukraine suffering lack of military supplies all winter, Russia has barely gained any ground in the last year to justify the monumental loss of life and material.
How did that work out for the USSR?
Just can't see how Ukraine is anything but a massive economic, military and humanitarian catastrophe for Russia.
From my side of the ledger...
Progress! Russian fluffers are finally beginning to grudgingly admit that Russia has suffered "considerable cost" in their total cockup of an invasion. Despite Ukraine suffering lack of military supplies all winter, Russia has barely gained any ground in the last year to justify the monumental loss of life and material. But any day now - there will be another Blitzkrieg of Kyiv?
And as usual, it has nothing to do with Ukraine's fate as you misconstrue even more than a Trump comment about the auto industry.
They're winning the optics whether you like it or not.
Optics? 100's of thousands of dead for optics? 100's of billions of dollars squandered for optics?
Money and blood well spent, I guess.
Who would have predicted that 3 years ago?
Russia has lost its Naval presence and capacity to blockade anything in the Black Sea, h
So? Ukraine is a LAND war.
L-A-N-D
Was it the Soviet Navy that defeated Germany in WW2?
Socal hasn't been wrong on this
Ukraine, despite what you think - is now one of the most experienced and most heavily armed militaries in Europe
socal2 says
Russia has lost its Naval presence and capacity to blockade anything in the Black Sea, h
Once again:
UkraineIsTotallyFucked says
So? Ukraine is a LAND war.
L-A-N-D
Was it the Soviet Navy that defeated Germany in WW2?
Russia occupies less Ukrainian territory today than they did at the start of 2022.
richwicks says
Money and blood well spent, I guess.
You are talking about Russia - right?
All the Russia fluffers have been CONFIDENTALY predicting a total Russian victory since the start of the war. Doesn't matter that they can't define what a victory looks like. But 3 years later with hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded Russians - Russia occupies less Ukrainian territory today than they did at the start of 2022. Russia's navy, helicopter and jet fleet is a fraction of what it once was. Not to mention the loss of so many senior Russian officers.
As for Ukraine, it is the most human thing in the world to defend one's homeland from being invaded by a hostile neighbor. Despite being outnumbered and outspent, Ukraine has basically frozen Russia's invasion into a bloody stalemate. Who would have predicted that 3 years ago?
How many Russians do you think died? And why would you believe the numbers?
He will never answer this.
All we get is autistic screeching "It's a land war!" "Ukraine is fucked!" "Nuland!" "Global homo Nazis!"
See? 'Land war' is a perfect example. By pointing that obvious out, he looks like a idiot. And he can't counter it, either. And you would think he'd stop bringing up The Great Battles of the Black Sea bullshit he constantly posts as a result. But now...Ukey Nazi Fluffers have to gotta fluff, after all!
A significant portion of Ukraine's economy is tied up with agriculture providing nearly half of Ukraine's export income. Majority of the grain is shipped through the Black Sea.
How many Russians do you think died? And why would you believe the numbers?
I don't care about Ukraine. This should have been easy for Russia.
They've lost major naval vessels in the Black Sea in a war that had nothing to do with water. Russia has been stopped, no advanced and were embarrassed at the beginning of this whole ordeal. This isn't even a discussion.
Do I side with a anyone? Nope. I'm pointing out actually facts. Russia has likely lost as many troops and mercenaries as Ukraine. Otherwise they'd have gained ground. They haven't. This is WWI type trench warfare. Russians are dying as much as Ukrainians. So let me know who's winning? Russia looks weak.
Grain exports are not going to save Ukraine. WTF?
Right - as if Ukraine maintaining one of its biggest export corridors and source of income during a war of survival is no big deal to Russian fluffers? Forgot - "ITS A LAND WAR!"
Why did Russia lose it's Black Fleet Navy and embarrass itself to the whole world trying to blockade Ukraine's grain exports if it doesn't matter?
Wasn't the whole point of Russia invading Crimea to give it better access to the Black Sea?
Laughable watching how far you guys are willing to move the goal posts to rosy up Russia's massive military embarrassment.
Jesus fucking christ!
richwicks says
Money and blood well spent, I guess.
You are talking about Russia - right?
All the Russia fluffers have been CONFIDENTALY predicting a total Russian victory since the start of the war.
Who cares. The cabal that runs the United States is just killing all of us with these stupid wars. Russia will fight a war of attrition and just allow the US to continue to bankrupt the entire nation for something 99.99% of the US population has no stake in. The Middle East has been doing this for 2 decades now.
I bet if it came to war in Ukraine, Russia wouldn't even cut off their energy exports to Europe although the US might sabotage these pipelines and then attempt to blame Russia.
The United States is causing this conflict, not Russia. It's just another example of the insanity that runs this nation. The US has bombed 7 nations over the last 20 years - has this in any way benefited this nation?
Funny - as you appear to be the most emotionally Patneter invested in Russia "winning".
Not only were you guys spectacularly wrong about Russia succeeding
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