A place for aggregated discussions of a possible conflict, it’s implications and effects, news updates and personal accounts if any. If the expected conflict kicks off, I will change the title but the function will stay the same.
Isn't he the guy who tries to stop new homeowners from turning into their parents?
Isn't he the guy who tries to stop new homeowners from turning into their parents?
Showed my wife this thread, first words out of her mouth “President Zelenskyy, do you really need a sign that says Live, Laugh, Love?”
Videos emerging from Russia that Putin's goons have taken to buldozing and paving over Wagner cemeteries.
I guess they really are making a statement.
I wonder if the remaining Wagner forces are just going to fade into the background (or Africa) or if this sort of retaliation from Putin will cause some sort of civil war.
I wonder if the remaining Wagner forces are just going to fade into the background (or Africa) or if this sort of retaliation from Putin will cause some sort of civil war.
It does feel like Putin and his cronies are really going out of their way to antagonize Wagner folks. It seems a bold move. Let's see if it works out for them.
Reports that Wagner employees have been required to sign a loyalty oath to the Russian Republic. That's one of the things that the revolt was about, right?
Reports that Wagner employees have been required to sign a loyalty oath to the Russian Republic. That's one of the things that the revolt was about, right?
Please stand in front of the window for your loyalty photo.
Glory to Arstotzka!
Notice the Wagner approved personal protection weapon holster in the small of the back...
The loyalty oaths specifically mention fealty to Putin the man. Not that we have had any shortage of evidence, but this little bit continues to press home the message that Putin's policy is L'État, c'est moi
I immediately thought of the Hitler Youth and the SS oaths.
'Dying by the dozens every day' - Ukraine losses climb
There has been a dramatic rise in Ukraine's number of dead, according to new estimates by unnamed US officials. The BBC's Quentin Sommerville has been on the front line in the east, where the grim task of counting the dead has become a daily reality.
The unknown soldiers lie piled high in a small brick mortuary, not very far from the front line in Donetsk, where 26-year-old Margo says she speaks to the dead.
"It may sound weird… but I'm the one who wants to apologise for their deaths. I want to thank them somehow. It's as if they can hear, but they can't respond."
At her cluttered desk outside the mortuary's heavy door, she sits, pen in hand. It is her job to record the particulars of the fallen.
Ukraine gives no official toll of its war dead - the Ukrainian armed forces have reiterated that their war casualty numbers are a state secret - but Margo knows the losses are huge.
The figures remain classified. But US officials, quoted by the New York Times, recently put the number at 70,000 dead and as many as 120,000 injured. It is a staggering figure, from an armed forces estimated at only half a million strong. The UN has recorded 9,177 civilian deaths to date.
................................
Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar earlier released a statement warning that those who release casualty numbers would be liable to criminal prosecution.
"Why is this data secret?" she asked rhetorically. "Because during the active phase of the war, the enemy uses the number of dead and wounded to calculate our likely further actions… If the enemy has this information, they will begin to understand some of our next steps."
The toll of the war hangs heavy on the men of the 68th Jaeger Brigade, who are fighting to stop Russian advances on the eastern front, near the town of Kupiansk.
In 35C-plus temperatures, we sought some shelter under camouflage netting, away from the midday heat and the ever-present danger of Russian drones. A deputy battalion commander who goes by the call-sign "Lermontov" was in a reflective and dark mood. Over freshly brewed coffee, he predicted a long war.
The Russians won't stop, he said, "you can't negotiate with them". The West doesn't understand this. Young soldiers who expected to be home in a year realise now, he said, they will be gone longer.
Ukraine's Bober drones were busy tonight, striking airbases and a chip plant.
While I know Bober means beaver, I can't help but imagine this lady emerging from dark Russian skies and creating loud booms!
Ukraine's Bober drones were busy tonight, striking airbases and a chip plant.
While I know Bober means beaver, I can't help but imagine this lady emerging from dark Russian skies and creating loud booms!
Patriot air defense has entered the chat.
Didn’t Sarah palin name one of her kids THAAD?
Anna's description of the difference between Ukrainian and Russian cultural mentality and its relationship to optimism reminds me of a similar discussion I remember having with folks here in America regarding the rise of authoritarian populism. The whole "Make America Great Again" business is all about a culture of grievance, jealousy, and imagined injury. And it encourages the kind of learned helplessness you see in rural poverty.
Someone once explained to me that the reason tattoos are so common among folks who can't afford rent is that they represent the single class of art, beauty, or value that cannot be repossessed. I replied that someone with an ounce of optimism would use the same logic to purchase education instead.
That, above all else, appears to explain the cultural difference between Russia and Ukraine.
Someone once explained to me that the reason tattoos are so common among folks who can't afford rent is that they represent the single class of art, beauty, or value that cannot be repossessed. I replied that someone with an ounce of optimism would use the same logic to purchase education instead.
To be fair, most tattoos won't take you years to pay off.
Paleocon wrote:Someone once explained to me that the reason tattoos are so common among folks who can't afford rent is that they represent the single class of art, beauty, or value that cannot be repossessed. I replied that someone with an ounce of optimism would use the same logic to purchase education instead.
To be fair, most tattoos won't take you years to pay off.
Neither do technical certifications, generally.
I don't want to derail too much here, but let's not kid ourselves in thinking that in areas where there is systemic poverty that individuals are faced with a Frostian choice of paths and if only the individual had made a single, better choice, they too could achieve American "success."
Shit be complex.
And I'm not going to judge sleeve tats as a statistically significant contributor to modern suffering, especially when we've got Capitalism sitting right there, actively shuffling people and groups into winners and losers so that MFers like Elon and Thiel can Wealth Drain +1,000,000 to their already OP life builds.
I don't want to derail too much here, but let's not kid ourselves in thinking that in areas where there is systemic poverty that individuals are faced with a Frostian choice of paths and if only the individual had made a single, better choice, they too could achieve American "success."
Shit be complex.
And I'm not going to judge sleeve tats as a statistically significant contributor to modern suffering, especially when we've got Capitalism sitting right there, actively shuffling people and groups into winners and losers so that MFers like Elon and Thiel can Wealth Drain +1,000,000 to their already OP life builds.
I think that is the point in Anna's observation about Russia and in the observation of lots of other people about communities suffering under systemic poverty. It IS, as you say, complex. Some of it is about individual decisions, but the majority of it is systemic.
In both cases, the decision to invest in the future when so much is systemically uncertain is not always a logical one. Russians can't invest in businesses because they don't live in a society where there exist meaningful protections of property rights. The most logical decision a Russian can make is to leave.
The same rings true to a great extent for American communities of systemic poverty. Predatory revenue collection policies that disproportionately affect lower income residents (e.g.: speeding cameras, parking tickets, etc.) make the accumulation of capital and investment of it into productive assets illogical.
Interestingly, the Ukrainians have responded to similar circumstances differently. Their response appears to be a combination of optimism, defiance, collective action, and self improvement. Their willingness to work together and regard one another's welfare is precisely what makes them a resilient community. And without that critical aspect, they would be as bad off as the Russians.
That's fair.
I think we shouldn't be surprised when people are in situations that are filled with hopelessness that they...make decisions heavily influenced by hopelessness (drinking, etc.).
A fundamental difference between UKR/RUS here is that UKR didn't "choose" freedom in a vacuum (by which I mean, the context matters). They've been their own entity for 30 years, away from Moscow and the old USSR. They've had better elections than Russians and they haven't been under the boot of a regime that explicitly encouraged de-polticization in exchange for goods and (relative) stability (at least compared to the 90's).
I'll need to watch the full vid. Thanks for posting.
One other thing from Kamil:
It looks like the mutineers (Prigozhin) tried to use armed force as an argument in negotiation with the supreme power. They managed to extract certain concessions, including the guarantees of personal safety
If they got away with this, it would encourage everyone to emulate their example
By not punishing Prigozhin, Putin would normalise the use of armed force in all future negotiations with KremlinIt looks as if Kremlin:
1. Gave Prigozhin whatever the security guarantees he wanted
2. A bit later, broke them all
Kremlin hates being pressured and does not honour its own guarantees. That is why strategy of "negotiating" with Kremlin through the use of force turned out to be so counterproductive. Retrospectively, Prigozhin should have either never taken up arms or, if he did, he should not have laid them (down)
RUS gonna honor any peace agreement lololol.
And now Ukraine is letting their Beavers speak for them...
"Hellloooo, Moscow! Just wanted to say..... BOOM!"
Paleocon wrote:Someone once explained to me that the reason tattoos are so common among folks who can't afford rent is that they represent the single class of art, beauty, or value that cannot be repossessed. I replied that someone with an ounce of optimism would use the same logic to purchase education instead.
To be fair, most tattoos won't take you years to pay off.
Not to go too off topic, but there are also other reasons for tattoos that middle/upper class folks don't get, including signaling that you can take pain and are not to be f'ed with. I probably should have gotten a few in the Army so I didn't keep getting called Cherry past my first few months, but I don't like enduring more pain than I absolutely need to.
My wife who grew up with a VP dad and a mom who led a local non-profit can't sometimes understand why I sometimes do things the way I do. But a lot of it has to do with just day-to-day survival.
And to bring it back around, there's probably no culture that's better than being willing to die than show weakness and only caring about the short term than the Russians.
Honor Culture a helluva drug.
Time is running out for Ukraine’s counteroffensive. Its allies will be crucial in what comes next
This is similar to what Stephen Kotkin has been arguing: do a peace and make sure (free) UKR ends up like KOR or the BRD. That sounds good (less the part of abandoning all those kids and your countrymen to a bunch of genocidal maniacs), but is RUS really going to sit by when Western UKR is part of NATO? Putin's going to agree to that? Huh?
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