Ukraine War

[Longhorn_Fan68 33824]

yikes

 

[gmr548 16463]

Prob not sanction average Russian citizens who are barely making ends meet & advocating for them to feel pain? Americans try to port their domestic political views to geopolitics and it's a total fail. How many ppl with Ukrainian flags on their pfp could find the country on a map?

Answer the question.

[jimmyjazz 45512]

Kremlin says 4,000 but NATO says 40,000.

I think I've heard this story before, maybe a couple of years ago.

[Biff Tannen 45477]

Biden admin officially accusing Putin of war crimes.  Seems like a big step, no?

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20342]

Is it bad for your side when your troops start intentionally running over their commanding officers with tanks?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-troops-are-now-turning-on-each-other-its-a-shtshow-one-soldier-is-recorded-telling-another

[Longhorn_Fan68 33824]

omg, life really is stranger than fiction
 

Quote

Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsymbaliuk reported Wednesday that two tactical groups of Russian soldiers in Makarov, in the Kyiv region, lost at least half of their men in battles against Ukrainian forces.

One of the Russian soldiers “blamed the commander of the group, Col. Yury Medvedev, for the deaths of his friends,” Tsymbaliuk wrote on Facebook.

“Having waited for the right moment, during battle, he ran over the commander with a tank as he stood next to him, injuring both his legs. Now Col. Medvedev is in a hospital in Belarus, waiting for monetary compensation for combat wounds received during the ‘special military operation to protect the Donbass.’ Colonel Medvedev was awarded the Order of Courage,” he wrote.

The Daily Beast could not independently confirm Tsymbaliuk’s version of events, but Putin lackey and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov confirmed Medvedev was injured during fighting in a VK post this month.

Alongside a video of an injured Medvedev being evacuated on March 11 by Chechen troops sent in to bolster Russian forces, Kadyrov claimed Medvedev’s rescue was proof of how successful Putin’s “de-Nazification” of Ukraine was.

“There are no more threats to [Medvedev’s] life. I hope that he will soon be back on his feet,” he said, before adding that “such moments on the battlefield bring us together.”

 

[jimmyjazz 45512]

Quote

I hope that he will soon be back on his feet

Might be optimistic.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20342]

Former Russian foreign minister with a great tweet, though it's a couple of weeks old:

 

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

3 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Biden admin officially accusing Putin of war crimes.  Seems like a big step, no?

Perhaps in the historical sense. As far as anything of consequences arising from it, nyet. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

Oddly not false 

[DigglerontheHoof 21022]

Looks like the sides are lining up for WWIII...getting down to late pics in the draft. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

It has always been a truism throughout history that evil in the long run ultimately fails because by its very nature the thieves, hyenas and liars eventually start to turn on themselves and there is simply no doubt that both Putin and trump are evil to the core.

This is why brisket is wrong and always has been. 

[texastough 1128]

46 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Oddly not false 

hows that going for them, lets check

economically -- outlook not so good

ideologically -- my sources say no

militarily -- better not tell you now

[Francisco 2.0 32290]

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/putin-russia-ukraine-invasion-nazi-operation-1325817/

 

Quote

In the months before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, an oligarch with Russian ties allegedly paid for locals to paint swastikas around Kharkiv, sources say. The effort, according to the sources, was part of a false flag operation to exaggerate Ukraine’s Nazi presence at a time when Putin was using it as a pretext for war.

The alleged plot, according to multiple sources, involved Pavel Fuks, a real estate, banking, and oil magnate who, the sources claim, was co-opted by Russian security forces to participate. Through intermediaries, Fuks allegedly offered between $500 and $1,500 for street level criminals to vandalize city streets with pro-Nazi graffiti in December, January, and February.

 

Quote

The accounts of Fuks’ alleged efforts to stir up animosity in Ukraine is derived from multiple sources, including U.S. intelligence reporting. Rolling Stone spoke to an Ukrainian who says he confronted Fuks twice about the alleged swastika plot. Another account of the plot was relayed to the U.S. government in recent weeks by a U.S. informant with high-level business and government contacts in Ukraine. A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter, confirmed that the allegations about Fuks’ activities had been received and distributed for analysis throughout the U.S. intelligence community. Finally, Rolling Stone spoke to four other sources who spoke on condition of anonymity and confirmed they heard about Fuks’ alleged role in a plot to paint swastikas independently of one another.

 

 

Spoiler

Oleg Plyush, a former top Ukrainian kickboxer who says he’s a friend of Fuks and spoke to him about the swastika plot, tells Rolling Stone he learned about the scheme from an intermediary involved with finding people to carry out the vandalism. According to Plyush’s account, when confronted about the scheme, Fuks claimed that “he had no choice” and that it was his “assignment” — mandatory if he wanted to stay in business in the region.

Fuks did not return emails sent to his business and personal accounts. His US lawyer, John Lomas, did not return emails and a phone call seeking comment.

Fuks is Jewish and a major contributor to a holocaust memorial in Kiev, and there’s no reason to believe he would pay for swastikas out of antisemitism. Instead, if confirmed, the plot suggests there was at least one deliberate attempt by the Russian security state to manufacture evidence to exaggerate the sway of Nazism in Ukraine. In the run-up to the invasion and after, Putin claimed Ukraine had fallen under Nazi control and that the invasion was necessary to liberate the country — a claim broadly dismissed internationally but that, with the help of state-run media, seems to have taken hold among many Russians.

Plyush tells Rolling Stone he is aware of three instances of anti-Semitic graffiti that Fuks allegedly paid for. He claims the alleged campaign extended to Kiev, where a local Jewish publication found swastikas spray-painted in November near the city’s main synagogue. Plyush said that the low-level “street thugs” who were hired to paint the symbols, two of whom he says he personally knows, were offered around $1,000 or $1,500 each. Other sources put the amount at around $500.

Plyush provided a copy of his passport and offered to testify under oath, if needed, to his alleged encounter with Fuks. “I have no fear. I’m not afraid of anyone,” he tells Rolling Stone, speaking through a translator in a phone interview.

Rolling Stone was unable to independently verify any specific incidences of vandalism connected to Fuks’ alleged scheme. Anti-Semitic graffiti is not uncommon in Ukraine and has been for many years before the current conflict. “Today it is difficult to surprise anyone with extremist graffiti on the face of Kharkiv,” a local publication, Vgorode, wrote in 2011. “A swastika here, a swastika there, here calls to kill some foreigner.” Indeed, neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists have a long-standing presence in Ukraine. A party of Ukrainian nationalists sided at one time with Nazis in WWII; the leader of that movement has been lionized throughout Ukraine, including a birthday celebration held by a paramilitary group in Kharkiv in the weeks before the invasion. Nazi ideology permeates the notorious Azov battalion, which was founded by a far-right nationalists.

None of that, however, lends credence to Putin’s claim that Ukraine was under Nazi rule — or that Putin, who presides over a country with a sizable far-right problem of its own, was sincerely motivated by anti-Nazi sentiment when he launched his invasion on Feb. 24. Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust, and Ukraine criminalized anti-Semitism last year. Instead, Putin’s invasion is widely understood as an effort to exert Russia’s regional hegemony, a pre-emptive strike on a neighboring state that had reoriented to build closer ties with the West.

Desecrating Jewish sites and using Nazi symbols to foment unrest is a known subversive tactic employed by Russian intelligence, often referred to as “active measures.” Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB general, revealed in his memoir, Spymaster, that Soviet spies had synagogues in New York and Washington vandalized during the Cold War. KGB officers paid American agents to paint swastikas on synagogues to show that the United States was inhospitable to Jews. The KGB’s New York station even hired people to desecrate Jewish cemeteries, Kalugin wrote.

“We did it everywhere, wherever we could in the old days,” Kalugin tells Rolling Stone. Putin’s call to “denazify” Ukraine is a modern-day example of Russia’s “active measures” used to show the other side as much worse than it really is, Kalugin says.

Fuks’ alleged involvement in the Kharkiv operation adds another chapter to a controversial business tycoon with powerful friends, powerful enemies, and a long list of ugly legal battles.

Fuks says he was denied entry in 2017 into the United States and also testified that he was hit with a five-year travel ban. US authorities have not explained why he was denied entry, and Fuks believes it’s the work of his enemies. In a previously unreported development, a U.S. official tells Rolling Stone that Fuks was denied entry to the United States because of ties to Russian organized criminal groups.  (A representative of U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not return a message left seeking comment.)

“Honestly, he’s mafia, it’s the most simple way to say it,” Olga Lautman, senior fellow at the nonprofit Center for European Policy Analysis, told The Daily Beast.

Allegations about Fuks having ties to Russian organized crime also surfaced in a lawsuit filed in California state court in Orange County by a former business associate who alleged Fuks is an affiliate of East European criminal organizations, an agent of Russian intelligence services, and a money launderer. (The judge hearing the evidence has not yet ruled in the case.) Fuks posted on his Telegram channel that the former business associate is “a fraudster.” Fuks suggested that the allegations against him were made in response to a separate lawsuit Fuks had filed against the former associate, Yuri Vanetik.

Russian intelligence services have a long history of co-opting those connected with organized crime. Kalugin, the former KGB general, says he wouldn’t be surprised if they were using the same playbook today.  “As you know, President Putin is part of the Russian so-called ‘culture’ of conducting wars, real ones and propaganda, just like in the USSR,” Kalugin says. “He is part of this old Russian generation that is trying to restore as much as he can of this Soviet life.”

Fuks has a fearsome reputation in Ukraine, where he is reportedly known in some circles by his alias “Mercenary.” Several sources in Ukraine spoke to Rolling Stoneabout Fuks on condition of anonymity because they say Fuks is known in the country for seeking vengeance against people who crossed him. He once told a TV interviewer that he punished some of his workers who refused to stop smoking by having them eat their cigarette butts. A defense witness in Fuk’s lawsuit against Vanetik testified in September that he heard Fuks threaten Vanetik, saying he was going to “do him in.” (During the trial, Fuks denied making the threats.) “When I was young, I beat people up,” Fuks once said on Russian television, according to an investigative profile by Al Jazeera. “I don’t like it when someone lies to me.”

“Fuks is widely viewed by many in Kyiv to be basically a gangster and, despite his denials over the last three years, his money is basically tied up in Russia,” said Vladislav Davidzon, author of a book on Ukraine and a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Center. “His reputation in Ukraine is currently terrible.”

Russia had been a second home for Fuks. He made his fortune there in real estate and banking and held Russian citizenship. Fuks has said that he sold his businesses in Russia and returned to Ukraine in 2014 to pursue new opportunities. Another version of events is that Fuks left Russia trailed by huge debts and allegations of fraud. A warrant was issued for his arrest in Russia for allegedly embezzling $220 million, but Fuks testified that it had been rescinded.  At one point, Russia also imposed sanctions on Fuks. Last year, he said he had renounced his Russian citizenship. His current whereabouts are unclear.

It’s widely believed “that he’s a Russian-backed guy and that he’s involved in some murky and not transparent businesses somehow related to Russian interests,” says a former senior executive at the Ukrainian state-owned energy giant, Neftogaz, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Fuks’ role as the general director of a large Moscow development company in the 2000s led to meetings with Donald Trump to negotiate a Trump tower in the Russian capital. The deal fell apart after Trump demanded $20 million up front in 2006 for the right to use his name, according to an account Fuks provided toBloomberg. A former Trump executive told Newsweek in 2016 that the Trump Organization maintained links with Fuks over the years.

In 2016, Fuks was in Washington for Trump’s inauguration, which reportedlyattracted attention from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. He claims he paid $200,000 for a VIP package he thought included tickets to the swearing-in ceremony, but ended up watching the event from a hotel bar.

A spokesman for the former president did not respond to a request for comment.

Fuks’ introduction to Rudy Giuilani came when he hired the former New York’s mayor security firm. Fuks described Giuliani to The New York Times as “the lobbyist for Kharkiv and Ukraine.” That description has caused some grief for Giuliani, who is the subject of a federal investigation examining, among other things, whether he served as an unregistered foreign lobbyist. Giuliani has said Fuks mischaracterized his firm’s work: Giuliani Security & Safety provided security consulting services on Kharkiv’s emergency response system.

Giuliani did not respond to text messages seeking comment.

In another previously unreported development, a source with knowledge of the arrangements tells Rolling Stone that Giuliani told an associate he was paid $300,000 for his work for Fuks.  Over glasses of expensive Scotch whiskey one day in 2020, Giuliani allegedly related that he had grown somewhat frustrated with Fuks because it took some work to get him to pay his bill. “We had to apply pressure,” Giuliani said, according to a source with knowledge of the events. The source says Giuliani didn’t seem too bothered when he was told that Fuks, like many of Ukraine’s elites, associated with criminals.

The source says that Giuliani replied: “They’re all criminals.”

 

[Irwin F Fletcher 3550]

Kremlin says 4,000 but NATO says 40,000.
I think I've heard this story before, maybe a couple of years ago.

NATO uses the metric system. Hence the difference.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

4 hours ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

Looks like the sides are lining up for WWIII

I’ve come to the conclusion WW3 is a trigger word for people that grew up during the Cold War. We we’re well conditioned to believe WW3=nuclear holocaust. 

But what if I told you the Cold War was actually WW3? Think about it. We had several “proxy” wars all over the globe in an ideological/influence struggle between the superpowers. Presidents/leaders were assassinated, governments were toppled, dictators and democracies were installed (and subverted).  

This Ukraine conflict is almost a continuation of the same struggle except this time communism isn’t part of the narrative. It’s more of a global fascist/authoritarian movement entering an overt violence phase to destroy a democratic government. 

There’s also this weird implicit assumption the United States gets to decide when “WW3” begins. Never mind that Putin and his band of assholes have been fighting this war for years rather openly. 

My point here is whatever most people think WW3 is “supposed” to look like probably isn’t going to happen, which is a good thing. 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Hugo Stiglitz

[TexArcher 37455]

43 minutes ago, Irwin F Fletcher said:

9 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Kremlin says 4,000 but NATO says 40,000.
I think I've heard this story before, maybe a couple of years ago.

NATO uses the metric system. Hence the difference.

Check out the big brain on Irwin!  You a smart motherfucker, that's right.

[Thatguy 8478]

9 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

It has always been a truism throughout history that evil in the long run ultimately fails because by its very nature the thieves, hyenas and liars eventually start to turn on themselves and there is simply no doubt that both Putin and trump are evil to the core.

This is why brisket is wrong and always has been. 

   Evil does fail but the cost has been what Brisket is concerned about. WW2 is a fine example of that. What concerns us is that this time the country at the forefront is the very country that has shown over the last 100+ years or so that they are willing to sacrifice their entire populace to overcome whatever shortcoming they have strategically. That is a scary thought.

[DigglerontheHoof 21022]

44 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

   Evil does fail but the cost has been what Brisket is concerned about. WW2 is a fine example of that. What concerns us is that this time the country at the forefront is the very country that has shown over the last 100+ years or so that they are willing to sacrifice their entire populace to overcome whatever shortcoming they have strategically. That is a scary thought.

Yeah, it seems life is really "cheap" in Russia.  Folks are saying all these military funerals will sour the public on the war.  I hope so.  But, fuck, they lost 20m in WWII.  I realize this invasion of Ukraine is big-time apples/oranges to WWII but the fact remains, those motherfuckers can suffer w/ the best of them.   But then again, Ukrainians are made of the same stuff.  

The Ledge, to me, has always been about the blood shed and carnage that will have to happen to drive authoritarians out of power.  Not that they'll ultimately succeed. 

[Dnaguy 11740]

8 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/putin-russia-ukraine-invasion-nazi-operation-1325817/

 

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Oleg Plyush, a former top Ukrainian kickboxer who says he’s a friend of Fuks and spoke to him about the swastika plot, tells Rolling Stone he learned about the scheme from an intermediary involved with finding people to carry out the vandalism. According to Plyush’s account, when confronted about the scheme, Fuks claimed that “he had no choice” and that it was his “assignment” — mandatory if he wanted to stay in business in the region.

Fuks did not return emails sent to his business and personal accounts. His US lawyer, John Lomas, did not return emails and a phone call seeking comment.

Fuks is Jewish and a major contributor to a holocaust memorial in Kiev, and there’s no reason to believe he would pay for swastikas out of antisemitism. Instead, if confirmed, the plot suggests there was at least one deliberate attempt by the Russian security state to manufacture evidence to exaggerate the sway of Nazism in Ukraine. In the run-up to the invasion and after, Putin claimed Ukraine had fallen under Nazi control and that the invasion was necessary to liberate the country — a claim broadly dismissed internationally but that, with the help of state-run media, seems to have taken hold among many Russians.

Plyush tells Rolling Stone he is aware of three instances of anti-Semitic graffiti that Fuks allegedly paid for. He claims the alleged campaign extended to Kiev, where a local Jewish publication found swastikas spray-painted in November near the city’s main synagogue. Plyush said that the low-level “street thugs” who were hired to paint the symbols, two of whom he says he personally knows, were offered around $1,000 or $1,500 each. Other sources put the amount at around $500.

Plyush provided a copy of his passport and offered to testify under oath, if needed, to his alleged encounter with Fuks. “I have no fear. I’m not afraid of anyone,” he tells Rolling Stone, speaking through a translator in a phone interview.

Rolling Stone was unable to independently verify any specific incidences of vandalism connected to Fuks’ alleged scheme. Anti-Semitic graffiti is not uncommon in Ukraine and has been for many years before the current conflict. “Today it is difficult to surprise anyone with extremist graffiti on the face of Kharkiv,” a local publication, Vgorode, wrote in 2011. “A swastika here, a swastika there, here calls to kill some foreigner.” Indeed, neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists have a long-standing presence in Ukraine. A party of Ukrainian nationalists sided at one time with Nazis in WWII; the leader of that movement has been lionized throughout Ukraine, including a birthday celebration held by a paramilitary group in Kharkiv in the weeks before the invasion. Nazi ideology permeates the notorious Azov battalion, which was founded by a far-right nationalists.

None of that, however, lends credence to Putin’s claim that Ukraine was under Nazi rule — or that Putin, who presides over a country with a sizable far-right problem of its own, was sincerely motivated by anti-Nazi sentiment when he launched his invasion on Feb. 24. Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust, and Ukraine criminalized anti-Semitism last year. Instead, Putin’s invasion is widely understood as an effort to exert Russia’s regional hegemony, a pre-emptive strike on a neighboring state that had reoriented to build closer ties with the West.

Desecrating Jewish sites and using Nazi symbols to foment unrest is a known subversive tactic employed by Russian intelligence, often referred to as “active measures.” Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB general, revealed in his memoir, Spymaster, that Soviet spies had synagogues in New York and Washington vandalized during the Cold War. KGB officers paid American agents to paint swastikas on synagogues to show that the United States was inhospitable to Jews. The KGB’s New York station even hired people to desecrate Jewish cemeteries, Kalugin wrote.

“We did it everywhere, wherever we could in the old days,” Kalugin tells Rolling Stone. Putin’s call to “denazify” Ukraine is a modern-day example of Russia’s “active measures” used to show the other side as much worse than it really is, Kalugin says.

Fuks’ alleged involvement in the Kharkiv operation adds another chapter to a controversial business tycoon with powerful friends, powerful enemies, and a long list of ugly legal battles.

Fuks says he was denied entry in 2017 into the United States and also testified that he was hit with a five-year travel ban. US authorities have not explained why he was denied entry, and Fuks believes it’s the work of his enemies. In a previously unreported development, a U.S. official tells Rolling Stone that Fuks was denied entry to the United States because of ties to Russian organized criminal groups.  (A representative of U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not return a message left seeking comment.)

“Honestly, he’s mafia, it’s the most simple way to say it,” Olga Lautman, senior fellow at the nonprofit Center for European Policy Analysis, told The Daily Beast.

Allegations about Fuks having ties to Russian organized crime also surfaced in a lawsuit filed in California state court in Orange County by a former business associate who alleged Fuks is an affiliate of East European criminal organizations, an agent of Russian intelligence services, and a money launderer. (The judge hearing the evidence has not yet ruled in the case.) Fuks posted on his Telegram channel that the former business associate is “a fraudster.” Fuks suggested that the allegations against him were made in response to a separate lawsuit Fuks had filed against the former associate, Yuri Vanetik.

Russian intelligence services have a long history of co-opting those connected with organized crime. Kalugin, the former KGB general, says he wouldn’t be surprised if they were using the same playbook today.  “As you know, President Putin is part of the Russian so-called ‘culture’ of conducting wars, real ones and propaganda, just like in the USSR,” Kalugin says. “He is part of this old Russian generation that is trying to restore as much as he can of this Soviet life.”

Fuks has a fearsome reputation in Ukraine, where he is reportedly known in some circles by his alias “Mercenary.” Several sources in Ukraine spoke to Rolling Stoneabout Fuks on condition of anonymity because they say Fuks is known in the country for seeking vengeance against people who crossed him. He once told a TV interviewer that he punished some of his workers who refused to stop smoking by having them eat their cigarette butts. A defense witness in Fuk’s lawsuit against Vanetik testified in September that he heard Fuks threaten Vanetik, saying he was going to “do him in.” (During the trial, Fuks denied making the threats.) “When I was young, I beat people up,” Fuks once said on Russian television, according to an investigative profile by Al Jazeera. “I don’t like it when someone lies to me.”

“Fuks is widely viewed by many in Kyiv to be basically a gangster and, despite his denials over the last three years, his money is basically tied up in Russia,” said Vladislav Davidzon, author of a book on Ukraine and a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Center. “His reputation in Ukraine is currently terrible.”

Russia had been a second home for Fuks. He made his fortune there in real estate and banking and held Russian citizenship. Fuks has said that he sold his businesses in Russia and returned to Ukraine in 2014 to pursue new opportunities. Another version of events is that Fuks left Russia trailed by huge debts and allegations of fraud. A warrant was issued for his arrest in Russia for allegedly embezzling $220 million, but Fuks testified that it had been rescinded.  At one point, Russia also imposed sanctions on Fuks. Last year, he said he had renounced his Russian citizenship. His current whereabouts are unclear.

It’s widely believed “that he’s a Russian-backed guy and that he’s involved in some murky and not transparent businesses somehow related to Russian interests,” says a former senior executive at the Ukrainian state-owned energy giant, Neftogaz, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Fuks’ role as the general director of a large Moscow development company in the 2000s led to meetings with Donald Trump to negotiate a Trump tower in the Russian capital. The deal fell apart after Trump demanded $20 million up front in 2006 for the right to use his name, according to an account Fuks provided toBloomberg. A former Trump executive told Newsweek in 2016 that the Trump Organization maintained links with Fuks over the years.

In 2016, Fuks was in Washington for Trump’s inauguration, which reportedlyattracted attention from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. He claims he paid $200,000 for a VIP package he thought included tickets to the swearing-in ceremony, but ended up watching the event from a hotel bar.

A spokesman for the former president did not respond to a request for comment.

Fuks’ introduction to Rudy Giuilani came when he hired the former New York’s mayor security firm. Fuks described Giuliani to The New York Times as “the lobbyist for Kharkiv and Ukraine.” That description has caused some grief for Giuliani, who is the subject of a federal investigation examining, among other things, whether he served as an unregistered foreign lobbyist. Giuliani has said Fuks mischaracterized his firm’s work: Giuliani Security & Safety provided security consulting services on Kharkiv’s emergency response system.

Giuliani did not respond to text messages seeking comment.

In another previously unreported development, a source with knowledge of the arrangements tells Rolling Stone that Giuliani told an associate he was paid $300,000 for his work for Fuks.  Over glasses of expensive Scotch whiskey one day in 2020, Giuliani allegedly related that he had grown somewhat frustrated with Fuks because it took some work to get him to pay his bill. “We had to apply pressure,” Giuliani said, according to a source with knowledge of the events. The source says Giuliani didn’t seem too bothered when he was told that Fuks, like many of Ukraine’s elites, associated with criminals.

The source says that Giuliani replied: “They’re all criminals.”

 

Fuks around and found out

[Gil Bang 25865]

Youza.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11667]

Bolton doing a great job against RT propaganda. 
 

 

 

[Guest Lobo]

that awkward moment when your producer whispers into your ear piece, 'shit...uh...say something about iraq.' 

My condolences on her upcoming suicide.  

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Lobo

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11667]

2 minutes ago, Lobo said:

that awkward moment when your producer whispers into your ear piece, 'shit...uh...say something about iraq.' 

My condolences on her upcoming suicide.  

 

That ad hominem part was pretty notable.  I also enjoyed the fact that she thought she was getting a dig in by suggesting Russia is willing to use cannon fodder while US relies on technology.  

[WhatTheBuck 28700]

1 hour ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

Bolton doing a great job against RT propaganda. 
 

 

 

Bolton is a piece of shit and what is he doing on a Russian propaganda network?

[Brisketexan 104462]

4 hours ago, Thatguy said:

   Evil does fail but the cost has been what Brisket is concerned about. WW2 is a fine example of that. What concerns us is that this time the country at the forefront is the very country that has shown over the last 100+ years or so that they are willing to sacrifice their entire populace to overcome whatever shortcoming they have strategically. That is a scary thought.

FTR....this.  Humanity will survive.  Some humanity and decency will ultimately prevail.  But what we're going to lose in the process has already been shittacular, and will get worse.

Sure, there's almost certainly going to be a "see what rises from the ashes" moment.....but that means that first comes the horrible conflagration moment.  Maybe we should, I dunno, try to avoid or minimize that moment?  Yet we seem dead set on maximizing it.  This is our concern, dude.  How many broken dreams, lives, and bodies do we have to walk across to get to the other side......

Edited March 24, 2022 by Brisketexan

[TwiceHorn 31184]

22 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

Death from above is real. If those hits are artillery shells, I didn't realize how accurate it had become. 

 

Artillery is fascinating.  The ballistics of a given cannon and shell are well-known and predictable.  The issue with accuracy is knowing precisely where the cannon is located and where the target is located.   GPS and related locating technology has changed up the game.

[Pescado_Rojo 19327]

12 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Artillery is fascinating.  The ballistics of a given cannon and shell are well-known and predictable.  The issue with accuracy is knowing precisely where the cannon is located and where the target is located.   GPS and related locating technology has changed up the game.

Counter-battery fire is what blows my mind. Radar accurate enough to pick up incoming rounds, calculate a solution, and return accurate fire before the enemy units can move their guns is just crazy. I don't know how true it is, but I've read that you can get off maybe two rounds before US Counter-Battery fire would reduce your artillery units to grease and twisted metal. 

[Red Five 40593]

16 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

FTR....this.  Humanity will survive.  Some humanity and decency will ultimately prevail.  But what we're going to lose in the process has already been shittacular, and will get worse.

Sure, there's almost certainly going to be a "see what rises from the ashes" moment.....but that means that first comes the horrible conflagration moment.  Maybe we should, I dunno, try to avoid or minimize that moment?  Yet we seem dead set on maximizing it.  This is our concern, dude.  How many broken dreams, lives, and bodies do we have to walk across to get to the other side......

Evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb. 

[OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2056]

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Bolton is a piece of shit and what is he doing on a Russian propaganda network?

yeah but he's still quick and knows how to tell a russian to go fuck herself, which is more than more Rs are willing to do. 

[RomaVicta 29756]

53 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Artillery is fascinating.  The ballistics of a given cannon and shell are well-known and predictable.  The issue with accuracy is knowing precisely where the cannon is located and where the target is located.   GPS and related locating technology has changed up the game.

 

37 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Counter-battery fire is what blows my mind. Radar accurate enough to pick up incoming rounds, calculate a solution, and return accurate fire before the enemy units can move their guns is just crazy. I don't know how true it is, but I've read that you can get off maybe two rounds before US Counter-Battery fire would reduce your artillery units to grease and twisted metal. 

American artillery has been first rate since the revolutionary war and Henry Knox. I think I read about Knox in The Winter Soldiers decades ago.

Robt. E. Lee was an exceptional artillery commander in the Mexican War and the astonishing march from Veraruz to Mexico City. 

I recall reading about the Excalibur artillery system that was developed but cancelled by the US. It could fire five projectiles at different trajectories so that they struck simultaneously. Seeing the effect on target of the Ukrainian artillery, I wonder if maybe we should have kept Excalibur, but I don't know much of the story behind its cancellation.

Ha! I tried to find the Excalibur artillery story, but found the wikipedia story about the Excalibur M982 guided artillery shell instead. I bet we supplied some of these to the Ukes or they have some kind of Russian version. 

Quote

Excalibur was developed as a longer-ranged alternative to conventional artillery shells, with GPS guidance for improved accuracy.[11] Excalibur has a range of approximately 40 to 57 kilometers (25 to 35 mi) depending on configuration, with a circular error probable (CEP) of 4 m.[12][13][14][15][16][17] The extended range is achieved through the use of folding glide fins, which allow the projectile to glide from the top of a ballistic arc towards the target.

 

If forced into combat, I think I want to be part of small squad operations of some sort. Maybe a spotter for a sniper (I'm a fair shot at best. Actually better with a bow when I've used one.} Something where you're hidden and flat on your stomach and not a priority target for guided munitions.

Fuck, the modern conventional battleground is a scary place. Respect to those who have served and either been on the battlefield or been ready to go to the battlefield. 

[Hookah Horns 3058]

16 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

It has always been a truism throughout history that evil in the long run ultimately fails because by its very nature the thieves, hyenas and liars eventually start to turn on themselves and there is simply no doubt that both Putin and trump are evil to the core.

This is why brisket is wrong and always has been. 

The fact that they always fail in the long run isn't all that comforting in the nuclear age. 

[Hagbard Celine 10734]

for all the talk of chem, i'm wondering if it's worth it to vlad......

- his troops' equipment is shit

- the uke defenders are extremely mobile and disbursed

- the civs have evacuated

to deal with the last 2 points that means a widespread dispersed attack to "make it worth it"* (which means a bunch of things) but the end result would be probably killing more of his own troops then ukes

[Make em eat Taco Bell 1549]

3 hours ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Counter-battery fire is what blows my mind. Radar accurate enough to pick up incoming rounds, calculate a solution, and return accurate fire before the enemy units can move their guns is just crazy. I don't know how true it is, but I've read that you can get off maybe two rounds before US Counter-Battery fire would reduce your artillery units to grease and twisted metal. 

saw a documentary about a British military scientist during WW1 figured out mathematically the German artillery positions and had his Brit guys open up on those locations. The German guns went silent after the retaliation. 

[Post Oak 20182]

5 hours ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

Bolton doing a great job against RT propaganda. 
 

 

 

That woman is interviewing like her life depends on it.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20342]

4 hours ago, Red Five said:

Evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb. 

If true, explain the Longhorns record over Texas A&M in football. 

[Mdhorn 5908]

6 hours ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

Bolton doing a great job against RT propaganda. 
 

 

 

Wow--this was televised?  What a colossal fail.  Propaganda is going to work even less with abject poverty, missing sons and ever changing but mounting lies.  There's no way all of this can fit under whatever umbrella they're trying to shield it with.    

[Mdhorn 5908]

4 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

If true, explain the Longhorns record over Texas A&M in football. 

Fighting Aggies always run out of time?  

Edited March 24, 2022 by Mdhorn

[RomaVicta 29756]

18 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

It has always been a truism throughout history that evil in the long run ultimately fails because by its very nature the thieves, hyenas and liars eventually start to turn on themselves and there is simply no doubt that both Putin and trump are evil to the core.

This is why brisket is wrong and always has been. 

Everything fails in the long run. The Greeks recognized a cycle running from anarchy (chaos) to monarchy to democracy to anarchy to monarchy. We (literally we, I've though the same thing) have tended to believe that democracy is the end of the evolution of government. It's not. When the shit gets bad, the humans look for a single person with power to make things better. 

 

[Dnaguy 11740]

7 hours ago, Lobo said:

that awkward moment when your producer whispers into your ear piece, 'shit...uh...say something about iraq.' 

My condolences on her upcoming suicide.  

 

condolences

[Dnaguy 11740]

1 hour ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

saw a documentary about a British military scientist during WW1 figured out mathematically the German artillery positions and had his Brit guys open up on those locations. The German guns went silent after the retaliation. 

 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33824]

lol, what is that gif from?

[sidis 9713]

26 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Everything fails in the long run. The Greeks recognized a cycle running from anarchy (chaos) to monarchy to democracy to anarchy to monarchy. We (literally we, I've though the same thing) have tended to believe that democracy is the end of the evolution of government. It's not. When the shit gets bad, the humans look for a single person with power to make things better.

and that person's name?

hot jesus.

 

and of course...

[Dnaguy 11740]

12 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

lol, what is that gif from?

 

[Hookah Horns 3058]

3 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

for all the talk of chem, i'm wondering if it's worth it to vlad......

- his troops' equipment is shit

- the uke defenders are extremely mobile and disbursed

- the civs have evacuated

to deal with the last 2 points that means a widespread dispersed attack to "make it worth it"* (which means a bunch of things) but the end result would be probably killing more of his own troops then ukes

Unfortunately there are tons of civs who haven't evacuated. From what I gather, many thousands of more civs are going to die in Mariupol alone.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33824]

 

[Make em eat Taco Bell 1549]

3 hours ago, Make em eat Taco Bell said:

saw a documentary about a British military scientist during WW1 figured out mathematically the German artillery positions and had his Brit guys open up on those locations. The German guns went silent after the retaliation. 

turns out this was the beginning of radar. Sitting on the toilet changed history.

an interesting long read

https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/boom-sounding-out-enemy

The sound rangers were credited with rooting out enemy guns in the British victory at Cambrai (Kam-bray), France, on November 20, 1917. In London, church bells rang to celebrate the quick destruction of the German artillery. Sound ranging also played a major role during the war’s final battle at Amiens (AH-mee-aahn) in 1918.

Sound ranging paved the way for the radar used in World War II and today.WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The multi-microphone technique began a revolution in war technology. Eventually, it would pave the way for a highly accurate way of detecting enemy planes and ships during World War II. Known as radar, the technique uses beams of radio waves to bounce or reflect off objects in the air or water.

Radio waves are another type of electromagnetic radiation. The reflected radio waves reveal the location of enemy craft. Since radar was first developed, it has spread beyond the world of warfare into fields such as meteorology, where it is used to track weat

[F250 28659]

8 hours ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

Bolton doing a great job against RT propaganda. 
 

 

 

What were they thinking by bringing Bolton on? Dude is a diehard "America, Fuck Yeah!!!" and will not hesitate to shit on Russia. Shit, he probably rubbed one out after the interview while murmuring "Commie bitch. Win one for the Gipper!"

 

[Dnaguy 11740]

1 hour ago, F250 said:

What were they thinking by bringing Bolton on? Dude is a diehard "America, Fuck Yeah!!!" and will not hesitate to shit on Russia. Shit, he probably rubbed one out after the interview while murmuring "Commie bitch. Win one for the Gipper!"

 

I mean…. It was a Tuesday.

 

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

2 hours ago, F250 said:

What were they thinking by bringing Bolton on? Dude is a diehard "America, Fuck Yeah!!!" and will not hesitate to shit on Russia. Shit, he probably rubbed one out after the interview while murmuring "Commie bitch. Win one for the Gipper!"

 

Because that is what they want him to do. If you think what he has to say will do anything more than rile up the Russians to rally to their dear leader's cause, you are sadly mistaken. I wonder how much that fuck got paid and in what currency to be their tool.