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

[SoCal Deek]

16 minutes ago, Coffeesforclosers said:

 

What an enlightened position! Have you considered writing a strongly worded post on a message board? 

Yes…you’re very ‘enlightened’, just like all liberals. If you can’t see it happening out your window it’s not happening. Very enlightened indeed. 

[John from Riverside]

1 hour ago, SoCal Deek said:

So we’re just paying for other people to get killed. Wonderful 

OK let’s recap a little bit here
 

Ukrainians did not invade Russia Russia invaded Ukraine

 

The soldiers that are getting killed are Ukrainians. It’s sucks and war sucks but I would much rather be someone else than our troops. If it Hass to be someone I would rather not be anyone.

 

It’s interesting, because I didn’t hold these beliefs whenever I was an active military member, but as a grow much older, I’m starting to have much more appreciation for life and especially a much further appreciation for our troops lives, because they don’t get a say in whether or not, they get put in a dangerous situation they just have to go

 

No more foreign wars

[SoCal Deek]

9 minutes ago, John from Riverside said:

OK let’s recap a little bit here
 

Ukrainians did not invade Russia Russia invaded Ukraine

 

The soldiers that are getting killed are Ukrainians. It’s sucks and war sucks but I would much rather be someone else than our troops. If it Hass to be someone I would rather not be anyone.

 

It’s interesting, because I didn’t hold these beliefs whenever I was an active military member, but as a grow much older, I’m starting to have much more appreciation for life and especially a much further appreciation for our troops lives, because they don’t get a say in whether or not, they get put in a dangerous situation they just have to go

 

No more foreign wars

On us getting involved in another foreign war thing you and I definitely agree. Where we differ is that I believe us paying for other people to die in a war is possibly worse. 

[John from Riverside]

15 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

On us getting involved in another foreign war thing you and I definitely agree. Where we differ is that I believe us paying for other people to die in a war is possibly worse. 

What what would your solution be? Do you think Russia should just take Ukraine?
 

Because that really is the only option other than supporting them without our support, they wouldn’t last for as long as they have

[SoCal Deek]

12 minutes ago, John from Riverside said:

What what would your solution be? Do you think Russia should just take Ukraine?
 

Because that really is the only option other than supporting them without our support, they wouldn’t last for as long as they have

Wonderful 

Keep paying for other people to die

An inconvenient truth! 

[John from Riverside]

1 minute ago, SoCal Deek said:

Wonderful 

Keep paying for other people to die

An inconvenient truth! 

Actually, that was a question to you what would your solution be?

[Tiberius]

 

[SoCal Deek]

10 hours ago, John from Riverside said:

Actually, that was a question to you what would your solution be?

John, I’ve said it so many times on here. I’d have never let this get started to begin with. Putin didn’t parachute into Ukraine or kill the archduke. He telegraphed this for MONTHS. But the world was either a) too busy watching ice skating b) not really all that bothered by the idea of incursion c) relying on the usual level of piss poor intelligence. 
 

But….just so we don’t go in a circle, once he did enter Ukraine it’d have been shock and awe from the world at the very first Russian boot that set foot across the border. Not the piecemeal nonsense we’ve seen. 

[Big Blitz]

 

[sherpa]

8 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:

John, I’ve said it so many times on here. I’d have never let this get started to begin with. Putin didn’t parachute into Ukraine or kill the archduke. He telegraphed this for MONTHS. But the world was either a) too busy watching ice skating b) not really all that bothered by the idea of incursion c) relying on the usual level of piss poor intelligence. 
 

But….just so we don’t go in a circle, once he did enter Ukraine it’d have been shock and awe from the world at the very first Russian boot that set foot across the border. Not the piecemeal nonsense we’ve seen. 

 

The "usual level of piss poor intelligence" predicted this with uncanny accuracy prior to the invasion.

 

The proposal you suggest of "shock and awe" assumes the capability to do so, which didn't exist at the time, the result of years of NATO "allies" not living up to their promises/obligations.

 

Of course the regality of facing a nuclear conflagration is not expressed in your suggestion, but certainly a reasonable assumption that has been thankfully avoided.

[SoCal Deek]

2 hours ago, sherpa said:

 

The "usual level of piss poor intelligence" predicted this with uncanny accuracy prior to the invasion.

 

The proposal you suggest of "shock and awe" assumes the capability to do so, which didn't exist at the time, the result of years of NATO "allies" not living up to their promises/obligations.

 

Of course the regality of facing a nuclear conflagration is not expressed in your suggestion, but certainly a reasonable assumption that has been thankfully avoided.

I could not disagree more. The boogeyman of nuclear war can be used to explain every conflict since 1945….of which there have been plenty. It’s a totally false argument. 

[JaCrispy]

Recent updates on tv news are that Ukraine is getting the sh-t kicked out of them…

 

But I’m sure the U.S. government doesn’t care, because at least we are weakening Russia…😉

 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by JaCrispy

[Dr.Sack]

On 7/19/2023 at 7:23 PM, Coffeesforclosers said:

 

...Sure? You're the first person to bring this claim up in this thread, so where does it come from? 

Reality?. 

 

[Coffeesforclosers]

31 minutes ago, Dr.Sack said:

Reality?. 

 

If it's that obvious, you should have no trouble posting a link to a source. 

[Coffeesforclosers]

7 hours ago, JaCrispy said:

Recent updates on tv news are that Ukraine is getting the sh-t kicked out of them…

 

😉

 

MSM gonna MSM. But given what Ukraine wanted to achieve, and what they've achieved so far, it's more right than wrong.

 

Ukraine tried a good, old fashioned Desert Storm style breakthrough. It failed for a bunch of reasons, none of them good for Ukraine.  They're fighting an attritional war right now, focusing on killing Russian commanders, blowing up ammunition dumps, cutting supply routes, and destroying Russian artillery, and they're doing "ok".  But it's definitely a Plan B because plan A was defeated. 

[Dr.Sack]

1 hour ago, Coffeesforclosers said:

If it's that obvious, you should have no trouble posting a link to a source. 

No need. Google Mariupol, Bakhmut and see for yourself.  

[Coffeesforclosers]

37 minutes ago, Dr.Sack said:

No need. Google Mariupol, Bakhmut and see for yourself.  

 

You can add Popasna, Sevierodonetsk, the 1st Kherson counter offensive, and Soledar to that list too.

 

Doesn't mean the Ukrainian army's been wiped out twice. 

[B-Man]

 

What happened to the Ukrainian counteroffensive?

JAZZ SHAW

 

 

FTA:

 

Quote

 

The counteroffensive began about three weeks later, with Ukraine making initial gains in Donetsk and Luhansk, two regions in eastern Ukraine that were illegally annexed by Russia last year.

Since then, however, the pace of progress has slowed considerably, leading to some frustration from Ukraine’s backers in the West, who hoped that the heavy weaponry and training they had provided would drive the Russian occupiers out of the country’s southeastern provinces.

So far, however, Russia’s defensive positions appear to be holding — while questions about the future of the conflict are growing.

 

 

That’s putting it charitably. The reality of the counteroffensive thus far has been quite different from the initial projections that were making the rounds. Ukraine waited so long to go on the attack that the Russians had more than adequate time to dig anti-tank ditches and set up fields of landmines. Ukraine has been unable to put a significant dent in Russia’s supply of Ka-52 attack helicopters and they have been pounding the advancing Ukrainian columns mercilessly. It’s estimated that Ukraine lost one-fifth of its tanks and heavy armored vehicles (that we gave them) in just the first two weeks of June.

 

This month, Gen. Mark Milley finally conceded that things aren’t going well. He described the current situation as being “a very difficult fight” that will likely “take a considerable amount of time and at a high cost.” One military analyst working with Milley admitted that the Ukrainian forces suffer from an “inability to conduct complex combined arms operations at scale.” In other words, they have plenty of heart and they’ve been fighting bravely, but they are not a modern army and don’t have the training required to take on a force like Russia. The Russian army may have turned out to be weaker than we had previously believed, but they are still a fully modern and well-equipped military force.

 

How much longer are we expected to keep this up? We’re well into the second year of the war and there has been no significant movement in the lines for months. Any suggestions of a negotiated peace deal are shouted down and those bringing up the idea are labeled as “Putin stooges.” All the while, we continue to flush endless resources into a country that is in ruins as we cheer on Ukraine’s forces toward some eventual supposed “victory” that nobody seems to be able to define.

Meanwhile, Russia is making the situation worse not only for Ukraine but for much of the rest of the world now that the grain export deal has gone off the tracks. As The Dispatch pointed out this weekend, any insecurity for the cargo ships in the Black Sea will impact millions of people almost immediately.

 

 

https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2023/07/23/what-happened-to-the-ukrainian-counteroffensive-n566560

[Tiberius]

 

[aristocrat]

 

[Tiberius]

Wow 

 

 

[Tiberius]

 

 

 

[B-Man]

 

Putin’s War Is Slowly Destroying Europe’s Breadbasket

 

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/21/ukraine-grain-harvest-00107212
 

 

[John from Riverside]

On 7/22/2023 at 5:43 AM, SoCal Deek said:

John, I’ve said it so many times on here. I’d have never let this get started to begin with. Putin didn’t parachute into Ukraine or kill the archduke. He telegraphed this for MONTHS. But the world was either a) too busy watching ice skating b) not really all that bothered by the idea of incursion c) relying on the usual level of piss poor intelligence. 
 

But….just so we don’t go in a circle, once he did enter Ukraine it’d have been shock and awe from the world at the very first Russian boot that set foot across the border. Not the piecemeal nonsense we’ve seen. 

So I appreciate the response, but it doesn’t really cope with reality

 

We are not going to go across Russia’s borders because they have nuclear weapons. Period

 

And you don’t want that you don’t know what that would look like, but I do unfortunately

 

what this has shown is that Russia didn’t keep up we considered them to be a peer whenever it comes to military strength now it turns out that they’re not even a near pier except for the nukes

11 hours ago, aristocrat said:

 

Sounds about right

But I failed to see how this is Biden’s fault. This would’ve happened no matter who was president.

 

Unless you believe that Trump and Putin were in cahoots, and the only reason why he wasn’t invading Ukraine is because he thought the Trump would do the job for him breaking up NATO

[Tommy Callahan]

4 hours ago, John from Riverside said:

So I appreciate the response, but it doesn’t really cope with reality

 

We are not going to go across Russia’s borders because they have nuclear weapons. Period

 

And you don’t want that you don’t know what that would look like, but I do unfortunately

 

what this has shown is that Russia didn’t keep up we considered them to be a peer whenever it comes to military strength now it turns out that they’re not even a near pier except for the nukes

Sounds about right

But I failed to see how this is Biden’s fault. This would’ve happened no matter who was president.

 

Unless you believe that Trump and Putin were in cahoots, and the only reason why he wasn’t invading Ukraine is because he thought the Trump would do the job for him breaking up NATO

Ukraine has attacked the kremlin at least twice and an armored division followed Wagner into Russia. 

[sherpa]

4 hours ago, John from Riverside said:

 

Unless you believe that Trump and Putin were in cahoots, and the only reason why he wasn’t invading Ukraine is because he thought the Trump would do the job for him breaking up NATO

 

That wasn't in Trump's power to do.

It would have required Congressional approval, which was never in the cards.

[BillsFanNC]

 

[SoCal Deek]

26 minutes ago, BillsFanNC said:

 

He could just be running out of clean T-shirts. 

[B-Man]

 

 

 

 

[B-Man]

 

 

 

 

[Big Blitz]

10 hours ago, B-Man said:

 

 

 

 

 

Some right wing nut on this board has been saying this since February 2022

 

 

 

 

I have no doubt there is fighting. 
 

But it’s the equivalent of a controlled football scrimmage made out to be the Super Bowl.  

[Coffeesforclosers]

U.S. Official Shares Details of Secret ‘Track 1.5’ Diplomacy With Moscow

 

Quote

Secret diplomatic talks are ongoing between former senior U.S. national security officials and high-ranking members of the Kremlin, a former U.S. official directly involved in the talks has confirmed to The Moscow Times.

 

Earlier this month, NBC first reported the existence of these back-channel discussions, which involve former U.S. officials engaging in discreet exchanges with the Kremlin, as well as a meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an effort to lay the groundwork for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. 

Known as track 1.5 diplomacy, these covert discussions enable both sides to understand each other's red lines and mitigate potential conflicts, serving as a crucial link between official government negotiations (track 1 diplomacy) and unofficial expert dialogues (track 2).

 

The Moscow Times has since spoken to one of the individuals directly involved in these talks. The former U.S. official agreed to speak on condition of anonymity given the confidential nature of the discussions.

 

“There is an eminent need for track 1.5 diplomacy when the world gets closed off as it has now,” the former official said. 

Meetings between the U.S. and officials in the Kremlin have been taking place at least twice a month, often through an online format. 

“I have been visiting Moscow at least every three months,” the former official said. 

 

When it came to the Kremlin’s willingness to lay its cards on the table, the former official stated: “We were given some access to the Kremlin’s thinking, though not as much as we would have liked.” 

 

From his vantage point, sitting across from senior Kremlin officials and advisers, it was apparent that the greatest issue was that the Russians were unable to articulate what exactly they wanted and needed. 

 

“They don't know how to define victory or defeat. In fact, some of the elites to whom we spoke had never wanted the war in the first place, even saying it had been a complete mistake,” he said. 

 

“But now they’re at war — suffering a humiliating defeat is not an option for these guys.”

 

“It was here that we made clear that the U.S. was prepared to work constructively with Russian national security concerns,” the former official added, breaking from the official U.S. line of squeezing Russia financially and isolating it internationally so as to prevent it from continuing its war against Ukraine. 

“An attempt to isolate and cripple Russia to the point of humiliation or collapse would make negotiating almost impossible — we are already seeing this in the reticence from Moscow officials,” he said.

 

“In fact, we emphasized that the U.S. needs, and will continue to need, a strong enough Russia to create stability along its periphery. The U.S. wants a Russia with strategic autonomy in order for the U.S. to advance diplomatic opportunities in Central Asia. We in the U.S. have to recognize that total victory in Europe could harm our interests in other areas of the world. 

 

“Russian power,” he concluded, “is not necessarily a bad thing.” 

 

On the subject of Russia's deepening relationship with China, the former official acknowledged that completely severing ties between Moscow and Beijing was unrealistic. However, efforts should be made to limit the extent of this relationship, he argued. Washington’s goal is to strike a balance that prevents an overwhelming consolidation of Russian power while fostering diplomatic opportunities in Asia, where Moscow plays a significant role.

 

“This does not mean we are abandoning Ukraine or Europe,” the former official was quick to note. “Rather, we want to find ways of guaranteeing Ukraine’s independence while bringing Russia back as a more creative player in European security.”

 

Both the U.S. and Russia should have used greater strategic imagination in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the official argued further. In recent years, Moscow has become especially resentful after the Biden administration did not prioritize efforts to rebuild strained U.S.-Russia ties.

The Biden administration thus realized — albeit too late — that Russia sought to be taken seriously, with its military build-up at Ukraine’s borders in 2021 a tactic to gain attention. 

 

“There has been a severe lack of sustained U.S.-Russia dialogue on European security,” the former official said, “and our negotiations in early 2022, prior to the full-scale invasion should have remained confidential, but the Russians proceeded to leak the details. This made the negotiation process far more difficult.”

He admitted, however, that no matter how much work the U.S. might now undertake, sooner or later Russia and Ukraine would have to sit down together at the negotiating table. 

 

“We suggested setting up a number of diplomatic channels in order to satisfy the desires of all the parties involved,” he said. “There firstly needs to be a serious U.S.-Russia channel, as these are the only two countries powerful enough to negotiate security in Europe. There must of course be a channel between Ukraine and Russia, another between Russia and the EU; and one between Russia and the Global South.”

 

During the discussions, it became evident that Ukraine’s chances of regaining its occupied territories were extremely slim. Crimea remains a particularly contentious issue, as Ukraine asserts its intent to reclaim the region which Russia annexed in 2014.

“If Russia thought it might lose Crimea,” the ex-official said, “it would almost certainly resort to [using] tactical nuclear weapons.” 

 

He noted that Washington had also offered to help conduct fair referendums in the Russian-occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, in which residents would vote on whether they wished to be part of Ukraine or Russia. 

 

Russia apparently declined this offer and claimed to have annexed the territories in September 2022 following referendums widely viewed as a sham.

But the former official expressed a sense of impasse in the ongoing secret talks. “In Russian diplomacy, everything is now linked, all built around the locus of the war making it impossible to do any productive forms of diplomacy.” 

 

The problem was less with the Russian elite as a whole than it was with Putin specifically, he explained. 

 

“Putin is the major block to all progress,” he said. “The U.S. administration has made at least  one attempt to speak with the Kremlin but Putin himself refused.” 

For this reason, he argued, Washington “should begin reaching out to the anti-war Russian elite and begin making progress with them.” 

If there was support among the elite for another leader, he said, “ousting Putin would not be impossible.”

 

Russia has started its Forever War.  They've got no plan except that they can't lose.  Even when we want to let them off the hook...they refuse because that looks like losing to them.  So they'll continue their current plan of bluster, bull####, and hoping they can shovel cannon meat into Ukraine until NATO gets sick of it and goes away, or forces Ukraine to the table.

 

Everybody knows this ends with a deal.  Nobody in Russia who matters wants a deal.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Coffeesforclosers

[ChiGoose]

Russia’s mass abduction of Ukrainian children may qualify as genocide

 

“The available evidence indicates that Russian efforts to indoctrinate abducted Ukrainian children are both systematic and extensive. A February 2023 reportpublished by the Yale School of Public Health identified a large-scale Russian initiative to re-educate thousands of abducted Ukrainian children via a network of more than 40 camps and facilities stretching from Russian-occupied Crimea to Siberia. “This is not one rogue camp, this is not one rogue mayor or governor,” said Yale Humanitarian Research Lab executive director Nathaniel Raymond. “This is a massive logistical undertaking that does not happen by accident.”

 

In mid-July 2023, the UK imposed sanctions on a number of Russians tied to the abduction of Ukrainian children. British officials said the deportations were designed to “erase Ukrainian cultural and national identity” via the relocation of Ukrainian children to a network of re-education camps. “In his chilling program of forced child deportation, and the hate-filled propaganda spewed by his lackeys, we see Putin’s true intention: to wipe Ukraine from the map,” commented British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.

 

It is not known how many children are involved in Russia’s abduction program. Ukrainian officials say they have identified almost 20,000 victims, but some fear the true total number may be far higher. Efforts to rescue Ukrainian children taken to Russia are now gaining momentum, but so far only a few hundred have been returned to Ukraine. Many have provided first-hand accounts of indoctrination efforts including daily recitals of the Russian national anthem and punishments for expressions of Ukrainian patriotism.”

[wnyguy]

3 minutes ago, ChiGoose said:

Russia’s mass abduction of Ukrainian children may qualify as genocide

 

“The available evidence indicates that Russian efforts to indoctrinate abducted Ukrainian children are both systematic and extensive. A February 2023 reportpublished by the Yale School of Public Health identified a large-scale Russian initiative to re-educate thousands of abducted Ukrainian children via a network of more than 40 camps and facilities stretching from Russian-occupied Crimea to Siberia. “This is not one rogue camp, this is not one rogue mayor or governor,” said Yale Humanitarian Research Lab executive director Nathaniel Raymond. “This is a massive logistical undertaking that does not happen by accident.”

 

In mid-July 2023, the UK imposed sanctions on a number of Russians tied to the abduction of Ukrainian children. British officials said the deportations were designed to “erase Ukrainian cultural and national identity” via the relocation of Ukrainian children to a network of re-education camps. “In his chilling program of forced child deportation, and the hate-filled propaganda spewed by his lackeys, we see Putin’s true intention: to wipe Ukraine from the map,” commented British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.

 

It is not known how many children are involved in Russia’s abduction program. Ukrainian officials say they have identified almost 20,000 victims, but some fear the true total number may be far higher. Efforts to rescue Ukrainian children taken to Russia are now gaining momentum, but so far only a few hundred have been returned to Ukraine. Many have provided first-hand accounts of indoctrination efforts including daily recitals of the Russian national anthem and punishments for expressions of Ukrainian patriotism.”

Indoctrination of the abducted Ukrainian children? Sounds a lot like the quote - "He alone who owns the youth, gains the future." 

[Coffeesforclosers]

2 hours ago, wnyguy said:

Indoctrination of the abducted Ukrainian children? Sounds a lot like the quote - "He alone who owns the youth, gains the future." 

 

Sounds a lot like what we did to the Plains Indians. 

[All_Pro_Bills]

5 hours ago, ChiGoose said:

Russia’s mass abduction of Ukrainian children may qualify as genocide

 

“The available evidence indicates that Russian efforts to indoctrinate abducted Ukrainian children are both systematic and extensive. A February 2023 reportpublished by the Yale School of Public Health identified a large-scale Russian initiative to re-educate thousands of abducted Ukrainian children via a network of more than 40 camps and facilities stretching from Russian-occupied Crimea to Siberia. “This is not one rogue camp, this is not one rogue mayor or governor,” said Yale Humanitarian Research Lab executive director Nathaniel Raymond. “This is a massive logistical undertaking that does not happen by accident.”

 

In mid-July 2023, the UK imposed sanctions on a number of Russians tied to the abduction of Ukrainian children. British officials said the deportations were designed to “erase Ukrainian cultural and national identity” via the relocation of Ukrainian children to a network of re-education camps. “In his chilling program of forced child deportation, and the hate-filled propaganda spewed by his lackeys, we see Putin’s true intention: to wipe Ukraine from the map,” commented British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.

 

It is not known how many children are involved in Russia’s abduction program. Ukrainian officials say they have identified almost 20,000 victims, but some fear the true total number may be far higher. Efforts to rescue Ukrainian children taken to Russia are now gaining momentum, but so far only a few hundred have been returned to Ukraine. Many have provided first-hand accounts of indoctrination efforts including daily recitals of the Russian national anthem and punishments for expressions of Ukrainian patriotism.”

Just think of the Russians as transsexual groomers and war crimes turn into Pride month celebration.

[Big Blitz]

 

[BillsFanNC]

 

[Tiberius]

 

11 minutes ago, BillsFanNC said:

 

Look at Putin's stooges trying to hurt the war effort 

[B-Man]

On 7/27/2023 at 8:57 PM, B-Man said:

Now what could they gain by that action?

 

Senate Democrats block oversight office to monitor US aid for Ukraine

Josh Christenson

 

Senate Democrats banded together Wednesday night to oppose the creation of a new office to audit US military assistance for Ukraine as part of a provision in the annual defense spending bill. Forty-five Democrats — including every member of the Senate Armed Services Committee — voted down an amendment to establish an Office of the Lead Inspector General for Ukraine Assistance as part of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also joined the Democrats in rejecting the new oversight office.

 

https://nypost.com/2023/07/27/senate-dems-oppose-oversight-office-of-us-aid-for-ukraine/

 

.

 

 

LOL.

 

Can you say "hypocrite"?