Democracy’s Fiery Ordeal: The War in Ukraine 🇺🇦

[B-Man]

 

 

Clearly the lopsided Griner trade shows that the US is NOT deadly serious about the war in Ukraine and it’s just a massive psyop designed to launder money and distract the NPCs.

 

Why else release a guy who not only helps kill Americans, but makes Putin’s war machine money.  

 

 

 

.

[Tiberius]

19 hours ago, B-Man said:

 

 

Clearly the lopsided Griner trade shows that the US is NOT deadly serious about the war in Ukraine and it’s just a massive psyop designed to launder money and distract the NPCs.

 

Why else release a guy who not only helps kill Americans, but makes Putin’s war machine money.  

 

 

 

.

Yup, he can go collect the resting burned out trash of Russian tanks our Javelin missiles have blown to atoms. What a joke 

[sherpa]

Here's some interesting information.

 

First on an inventory note, I was watching the CEO of Raytheon on CNBC the other day and he mentioned that in the first ten months of this war, Ukraine had gone through ten years of Javelin production and fifteen years of Stinger production.

Obviously, we need to get those, or replacements back up to acceptable inventories.

 

Next.

In Mar 2008, Russia invaded Georgia. Price of oil at the time was $125/barrel.

In Feb 2014, Russia invades Crimea.  Price of oil at the time was $103/barrel.

In Feb 2022 Russia invades Ukraine. Price of oil at the time was $93/barrel.

 

From January or2017 until January of 21, the price of oil averaged between $40 and $60/barrel.

Russia invaded nobody.

 

Seems patently obvious to me that Putin only invades when he can fund it with oil sales.

 

EU and UK have spent $29 billion on Russian oil since the invasion.

EU and UK have donated $28 billion in arms/aid to Ukraine.

Great strategy.

 

Check this chart for oil prices from Nov of 2020 until March of 2021.

 

Oil-Nov 2020 until March 2021

 

I wonder what happened in that time period to facilitate the rise?

 

Edited December 9, 2022 by sherpa

[Tiberius]

 

[B-Man]

 

 

 

Putin wanted Bout back for a reason.

 

His war in Ukraine has turned into a disaster and he’s running out of arms for soldiers he mobilized as reinforcements. It won’t be long before Bout not only arms up Russia’s forces but also the same terror groups that share his hatred for the West.

 

A lot of people will die when Bout gets his business revved up. But hey, at least the WNBA got its player out of the deal.

 

 

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2022/12/09/biden-admin-officials-russia-wants-its-assassin-back-for-whelan-n516815

 

 

 

[Tiberius]

Yes 

 

 

12 hours ago, B-Man said:

 

 

 

Putin wanted Bout back for a reason.

 

His war in Ukraine has turned into a disaster and he’s running out of arms for soldiers he mobilized as reinforcements. It won’t be long before Bout not only arms up Russia’s forces but also the same terror groups that share his hatred for the West.

 

A lot of people will die when Bout gets his business revved up. But hey, at least the WNBA got its player out of the deal.

 

 

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2022/12/09/biden-admin-officials-russia-wants-its-assassin-back-for-whelan-n516815

 

 

 

h no, he is Putin's secret weapon! He will wave his magic wand and weapons will appear! 

[B-Man]

23 hours ago, B-Man said:

Putin wanted Bout back for a reason.

 

His war in Ukraine has turned into a disaster and he’s running out of arms for soldiers he mobilized as reinforcements. It won’t be long before Bout not only arms up Russia’s forces but also the same terror groups that share his hatred for the West.

 

A lot of people will die when Bout gets his business revved up. But hey, at least the WNBA got its player out of the deal.

 

 

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2022/12/09/biden-admin-officials-russia-wants-its-assassin-back-for-whelan-n516815

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Warcodered]

7 minutes ago, B-Man said:

 

 

 

What Vicktor Bout supports the guy who just got him out of prison, I for one am shocked.

[B-Man]

16 minutes ago, Warcodered said:

What Vicktor Bout supports the guy who just got him out of prison, I for one am shocked.

 

 

No sh*t.

 

The point is NOT what he is saying, but that he is already back in business.

 

By the by, the interviewer is Maria Butina, who was also formerly imprisoned in the US as an unregistered foreign agent.

 

😡

 

.

[B-Man]

 

What next for Viktor Bout?

By Monica Showalter

 

FTA:

 

What's scary is that Bout returns now to a different world.

 

Ukraine is now an even bigger shambles than it was when the Soviet Union fell and arms are absolutely all over the place, ready for resale. Huge amounts of money and grift make it easier to get away with such deeds because a lot of people are doing it.

 

What's scarier still is that he still has ties to Afghanistan, where Joe Biden irresponsibly left an even bigger stash of weapons ... and based on U.S. and EU sanctions, the Taliban needs money. 

 

Bout claims he had only sold arms to the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan which once fought the Taliban, but U.S. intelligence and others think he may have sold to al-Qaida and the Taliban and just not be saying. If it's true, than he likely still has some good business ties with that bunch and they've got some fresh merchandise for him to dispose of for them. Even if it's not true, he could likely make a deal with them.

 

Both war zones are absolutely tailor-made for Bout's "services" and now Joe Biden cannot stop him.

 

He'll sell these arms lying around to anyone -- Mexico's cartels, flush with cash from crossing fees from illegals taking advantage of Joe Biden's open borders might be one buyer candidate. There are many other potential examples, too, particularly in Venezuela, or Yemen, or Burma, basically any hellhole.

 

But if just the Mexico trouble happens, and arms sales from Afghanistan or Ukraine go to the cartels, we will have come full circle then, wouldn't we?

 

Biden left the arms lying around in Afghanistan and Ukraine, Biden enriched the cartels looking for arms to buy, and Biden let Bout out of the clink in a cheap exchange for a woke basketball player who checked the right boxes, effectively releasing a him like a sealed bacillus.

 

Letting Bout out sounds like a perfect storm of trouble for the U.S., and this guy didn't like the U.S. to start with, given his willingness to sell weapons to FARC to kill Americans. Now he's got motive for revenge on the Americans that's cubed, based on those 14 years of hard time he did in Marion, Indiana. That dovetails with Putin's motive for revenge, based on U.S. money-flinging and weapons deliveries in Ukraine, and Russia's huge, bigger-than-American-casualties-in-Vietnam casualty count.

 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/12/what_next_for_viktor_bout.html

[Tiberius]

50 minutes ago, B-Man said:

 

What next for Viktor Bout?

By Monica Showalter

 

FTA:

 

What's scary is that Bout returns now to a different world.

 

Ukraine is now an even bigger shambles than it was when the Soviet Union fell and arms are absolutely all over the place, ready for resale. Huge amounts of money and grift make it easier to get away with such deeds because a lot of people are doing it.

 

What's scarier still is that he still has ties to Afghanistan, where Joe Biden irresponsibly left an even bigger stash of weapons ... and based on U.S. and EU sanctions, the Taliban needs money. 

 

Bout claims he had only sold arms to the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan which once fought the Taliban, but U.S. intelligence and others think he may have sold to al-Qaida and the Taliban and just not be saying. If it's true, than he likely still has some good business ties with that bunch and they've got some fresh merchandise for him to dispose of for them. Even if it's not true, he could likely make a deal with them.

 

Both war zones are absolutely tailor-made for Bout's "services" and now Joe Biden cannot stop him.

 

He'll sell these arms lying around to anyone -- Mexico's cartels, flush with cash from crossing fees from illegals taking advantage of Joe Biden's open borders might be one buyer candidate. There are many other potential examples, too, particularly in Venezuela, or Yemen, or Burma, basically any hellhole.

 

But if just the Mexico trouble happens, and arms sales from Afghanistan or Ukraine go to the cartels, we will have come full circle then, wouldn't we?

 

Biden left the arms lying around in Afghanistan and Ukraine, Biden enriched the cartels looking for arms to buy, and Biden let Bout out of the clink in a cheap exchange for a woke basketball player who checked the right boxes, effectively releasing a him like a sealed bacillus.

 

Letting Bout out sounds like a perfect storm of trouble for the U.S., and this guy didn't like the U.S. to start with, given his willingness to sell weapons to FARC to kill Americans. Now he's got motive for revenge on the Americans that's cubed, based on those 14 years of hard time he did in Marion, Indiana. That dovetails with Putin's motive for revenge, based on U.S. money-flinging and weapons deliveries in Ukraine, and Russia's huge, bigger-than-American-casualties-in-Vietnam casualty count.

 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/12/what_next_for_viktor_bout.html

Bull sh it 

[B-Man]

9 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

Bull sh it 

 

 

Deflective, non-intelligent response from one afraid to face his own contradictions.

 

 

[Tiberius]

2 minutes ago, B-Man said:

 

 

Deflective, non-intelligent response from one afraid to face his own contradictions.

 

 

No, it's just Bull sh it. This one guy you clowns want to build up into a hobgoblin of massive proportions. Just stupid 

[TSOL]

1 minute ago, Tiberius said:

No, it's just Bull sh it. This one guy you clowns want to build up into a hobgoblin of massive proportions. Just stupid 

 

 

Just like you guys built trump into one 

[Tiberius]

19 minutes ago, TSOL said:

 

 

Just like you guys built trump into one 

No, he tried overthrowing an election 

 

You just don’t care 

[Tiberius]

 

[ChiGoose]

Excellent news

 

 

[SoCal Deek]

3 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

Excellent news

 

 

I’m sorry…all Ukrainian news must come from Tibs. We have to maintain some semblance of order on here. 😉

[Tiberius]

4 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

Excellent news

 

 

Would love to know what they will be shooting at. Bigger cruise missiles I guess. Against those drone swarms I can't imagine they are of much help. Glad they are getting them though. 

[Coffeesforclosers]

49 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

Would love to know what they will be shooting at. Bigger cruise missiles I guess. Against those drone swarms I can't imagine they are of much help. Glad they are getting them though. 

 

They've got ABM capability.  Iran's helping replenish the stocks of short and medium range ballistic missiles Russia's been burning through. Iran's versions are just their take on the original Soviet/Russian missiles they bought. That's what they're for, that and shooting down the Russian Airforce. 

[B-Man]

 

 

 

Hmmm: Putin withdraws from annual hockey game he established

 

Vladimir Putin has created renewed concern around his allegedly deteriorating health after the Russian leader abruptly pulled out of an annual ice hockey game this week, RadarOnline.com has learned.

 

https://radaronline.com/p/vladimir-putin-pulls-out-annual-ice-hockey-game-health-concerns/

 

 

[ChiGoose]

43 minutes ago, B-Man said:

 

 

 

Hmmm: Putin withdraws from annual hockey game he established

 

Vladimir Putin has created renewed concern around his allegedly deteriorating health after the Russian leader abruptly pulled out of an annual ice hockey game this week, RadarOnline.com has learned.

 

https://radaronline.com/p/vladimir-putin-pulls-out-annual-ice-hockey-game-health-concerns/

 

 

What a shame. What other elderly narcissist is going to score eight goals against people who are scared that they might be drinking polonium tea if they defend him?

Edited December 16, 2022 by ChiGoose

[Tiberius]

10 hours ago, B-Man said:

 

 

 

Hmmm: Putin withdraws from annual hockey game he established

 

Vladimir Putin has created renewed concern around his allegedly deteriorating health after the Russian leader abruptly pulled out of an annual ice hockey game this week, RadarOnline.com has learned.

 

https://radaronline.com/p/vladimir-putin-pulls-out-annual-ice-hockey-game-health-concerns/

 

 

Concern?? How about hope and excitement! I hope the POS gets Ebola and rots to death 

 

[Tiberius]

 

[B-Man]

 

 

Olena Zelenska, wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, traveled to Paris France for a three-day visit December 12-14. As reported by Le Monde, “Members of the Ukrainian government will also come, including Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, and several ministers in charge of reconstruction, including Yulia Svyrydenko (economy), Oleksandr Kubrakov (infrastructure) and German Galushchenko (energy).” However, social media has erupted today after a “reliable store clerk” working on the ritzy Avenue Montaigne, has reported that Olena Zelenska went on a Christmas shopping spree spending €40,000 euros in an hour.

 

 

 

[Tiberius]

7 minutes ago, B-Man said:

 

 

Olena Zelenska, wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, traveled to Paris France for a three-day visit December 12-14. As reported by Le Monde, “Members of the Ukrainian government will also come, including Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, and several ministers in charge of reconstruction, including Yulia Svyrydenko (economy), Oleksandr Kubrakov (infrastructure) and German Galushchenko (energy).” However, social media has erupted today after a “reliable store clerk” working on the ritzy Avenue Montaigne, has reported that Olena Zelenska went on a Christmas shopping spree spending €40,000 euros in an hour.

 

 

 

Sounds like Mrs. Lincoln 

[Tiberius]

 

[Coffeesforclosers]

Personnel numbers are going to be tough to verify from a 3rd Party. Bakhmut is something out of 1917 right now, but if Wagner and the LPR/DNR are leading the charge, then the guys being killed are from Putin's surplus population; convicts, seperatist fighters from Luhansk and Donetsk, and Mobiks drawn from rural Siberia, White Russia, and the ethnic republics like Buriyatia and Dagestan.  Not "real" Russians from the rich, educated, politically well-connected St. Petersburg-Moscow heartland.

 

The KIA that really count for Ukraine are from Russia's shock troops: Chechens, VDV, Naval Infantry, and also prestige units like 1st Guards Tank Army.  Guys who are functionally irreplaceable because their skills and morale are the product of months or years of peacetime training and maneuvers, or who it actually hurts to lose because they're recruited from  politically relevant populations.

 

Nobody really knows why Russia wants Bakhmut so badly.  Everybody is looking at the same maps, and has been for months, and it's not like Russia won their war when they took the fortress towns of Sevierodonetsk and Lysychansk in a similar campaign.  *shrugs*

 

Anyway, here's a solid read by RUSI, a UK based defense policy think tank offering some preliminary analysis on the war from February to July.  Lots of interesting details.  One of the deciding factors for Russia invading was a determination by the Putin's security services that Ukrainians were largely apathetic, apolitical, and only really motivated by economic gains.  In other words, so long as Russia offered Ukrainians a better chance to keep their wealth or grow their wealth, they wouldn't mind the change in management or how it was done.  Ya know, because everyone who isn't part of Putin's Russia is a shallow, materialistic egomaniac with no core beliefs.  AKA the Neocon Playbook.

 

Enjoy. 

Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting from Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February–July 2022 by Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi, Jack Watling, Oleksandr V Danylyuk and Nick Reynolds

 

 

 

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by Coffeesforclosers

[Tiberius]

Very good article on the history of the war. 

 

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/16/world/europe/russia-putin-war-failures-ukraine.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

 

 

Like Mr. Putin, whose spies have been accused of poisoning and assassinating perceived traitors all over the world, Mr. Prigozhin has said that treachery is the worst sin any Russian can commit. He has proposed setting up his own Gestapo-like police force to hunt down the disloyal, including, he has said, Russian businessmen “who leave our country in their business jets.”

The fate of Mr. Nuzhin serves as a grisly warning.

Mindful of the pressures on prisoners of war and the risks they face, The Times has chosen to withhold their names. And, as with the other people we interviewed, we use documents and other evidence to vet their claims.

In Mr. Nuzhin’s case, we did not publish our interview with him, but he also spoke to Ukrainian media, which broadcast portions of his account. Soon after, he was released in a prisoner swap — and ended up back in the hands of Wagner.

He then appeared in a video on a pro-Russian Telegram account. In it, Mr. Nuzhin’s head was taped to a block. Looming over him was a man in camouflage, holding a sledgehammer.

“I woke up in this basement, where I was told that I will be judged,” Mr. Nuzhin says in the video, his voice dry and gravelly. The sledgehammer then swings down and crushes his skull.

Shortly after, Mr. Prigozhin released a statement endorsing Mr. Nuzhin’s murder.

“Nuzhin betrayed his people, betrayed his comrades, betrayed them consciously,” the statement said. “He planned his escape. Nuzhin is a traitor.”

A day later, asked about the video on a conference call with journalists, Mr. Peskov said, “It’s not our business.”

[Tiberius]

Here's a job! Wow, God speed men! 

 

 

[Tiberius]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday plans to appear in Washington on Capitol Hill, according to two congressional aides with knowledge of the plan — a trip that will mark Zelensky’s first public international appearance since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Zelensky plans to meet with congressional leaders to thank lawmakers for including funding for Ukraine in a spending package they are looking to pass this week, according to one the aides.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/zelensky-congress-washington/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f002

[TSOL]

At this point we might as well make Ukraine the 51st state.

 

They need to start paying taxes! 

[Tiberius]

2 hours ago, TSOL said:

At this point we might as well make Ukraine the 51st state.

 

They need to start paying taxes! 

They are paying with the blood of patriots 

 

No taxes though. Free ride for war and reconstruction. 

[TSOL]

18 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

They are paying with the blood of patriots 

 

No taxes though. Free ride for war and reconstruction. 

 

 

You sure?

 

We could build them a stadium too, get them an NFL team. 

 

Seriously, whose paying for all of this? Are your kids gonna be paying for this? 

 

Because mine are, they don't even know that yet. I'm not thrilled 

[Tiberius]

2 minutes ago, TSOL said:

 

 

You sure?

 

We could build them a stadium too, get them an NFL team. 

 

Seriously, whose paying for all of this? Are your kids gonna be paying for this? 

 

Because mine are, they don't even know that yet. I'm not thrilled 

We are. You don't like it? Good! 

 

That only makes me happy. I suggest you do a hunger strike, and follow through with it! No slacking! 

[SoCal Deek]

3 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

We are. You don't like it? Good! 

 

That only makes me happy. I suggest you do a hunger strike, and follow through with it! No slacking! 

I’ve always wanted to ask….are you of Ukrainian descent? 

[Tiberius]

4 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

I’ve always wanted to ask….are you of Ukrainian descent? 

Nope

[TSOL]

1 hour ago, Tiberius said:

We are. You don't like it? Good! 

 

That only makes me happy. I suggest you do a hunger strike, and follow through with it! No slacking! 

 

 

It's grand larceny you fool. Ultra grand 

[Tiberius]

40 minutes ago, TSOL said:

 

 

It's grand larceny you fool. Ultra grand 

Yup! So what? 

 

 

[B-Man]

 

 

 

Back to Ukraine:

 

  

 

 Zelenskyy might let Biden & Congress know that another $45 billion is ‘not enough’

 

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenzkyy will be in Washington, DC today to meet with President Biden and other government officials, and tonight he’ll address Congress:

 

 

 

Via the Associated Press:

 

 

“Keep the money flowing with very little oversight of where it goes” seems to be the main goal at this point.

 

 

.https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2022/12/21/byron-york-notes-zelenskyy-might-let-biden-congress-know-that-another-45-billion-is-not-enough/

Edited December 21, 2022 by B-Man