Русский корабль - иди нахуй

[Trey3216 15355]

5 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Works out well since the last time that tank was serviced properly was in 1990Works out well since the last time that tank was serviced properly was in 1990

Without the necessary means for necessary means for...

[Bateshorn 9937]

3 minutes ago, Bravo said:

maybe. i saw 70 yr old bolt action rifles in pics yesterday with steel WW2 helmets.

I demand hot T-34 action, and I demand it NOW!

[Guest Lobo]

Damn voice to text.  I’ll give it credit though, it can also hear the voices in my head

[Nicole44 22077]

7 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Without the necessary means for necessary means for...

 

[South Austin 52591]

2 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

 

[MoJames 8253]

5 hours ago, Bravo said:

Looks like just for fun.

[Chopper 17245]

Too political? This is astonishing in terms of how quick things may be turning internally in RU.

Julia Davis with Daily Beast has seemed very credible.

State propagandists called for Putin to end the “special military operation” before “frightening” sanctions destabilize his regime and risk civil war in Russia.

spoilered due to length

Spoiler

There is a notable mood shift in Russia, as darkness sets over its economy and the invasion of Ukraine hits major problems. While the beginning of President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale war against Ukraine was greeted with cheers, clapping and demands of champagne in the studio, the reality sobered up even the most pro-Kremlin pundits and experts on Russian state television.

The ugly truth about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is slipping through the cracks, despite the government’s authoritarian attempts to control the narrative.

The Kremlin-controlled state media is doing its best to flip the situation upside down, blaming the victims of Russia’s aggression for all of the casualties. On Wednesday’s edition of the state TV show The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev, the host claimed the fallout of Russia’s bombing of a maternity hospital this week was “fake” with no one there to be injured, despite photos of pregnant women being carried away from the blast that killed at least one child. A guest on 60 Minutes last Saturday even claimed Ukrainians “are firing on each other and blaming us.”

On Thursday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed that Russia never attacked Ukraine and repeated the same lies as Soloviev about the total absence of patients in the maternity ward and children’s hospital bombed by Russia.

 

Putin’s most trusted propagandists are becoming ever more desperate to distort or deny the evidence of the atrocities because the truth is finding its way past the roadblocks erected by the Kremlin. Russian citizens are not pleased either with the war, nor with the financial price they have to pay for their leader’s ill-conceived military conquests.

Even the infamous show run by Vladimir Soloviev—who was recently sanctioned as an accomplice of Putin by the European Union—became dominated by predictions of Russian doom and gloom. Andrey Sidorov, deputy dean of world politics at Moscow State University, cautioned: “For our country, this period won’t be easy. It will be very difficult. It might be even more difficult than it was for the Soviet Union from 1945 until the 1960s... We’re more integrated into the global economy than the Soviet Union, we’re more dependent on imports—and the main part is that the Cold War is the war of the minds, first and foremost. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union had a consolidating idea on which its system was built. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russia has nothing like that to offer.”

State TV pundit Karen Shakhnazarov pointed out: “The war in Ukraine paints a frightening picture, it has a very oppressive influence on our society. Ukraine, whichever way you see it, is something with which Russia has thousands of human links. The suffering of one group of innocents does not compensate for the suffering of other innocent people... I don’t see the probability of denazification of such an enormous country. We would need to bring in 1.5 million soldiers to control all of it. At the same time, I don’t see any political power that would consolidate the Ukrainian society in a pro-Russian direction... Those who talked of their mass attraction to Russia obviously didn’t see things the way they are. The most important thing in this scenario is to stop our military action. Others will say that sanctions will remain. Yes, they will remain, but in my opinion discontinuing the active phase of a military operation is very important.”

Resorting to the traditional propaganda tropes prevalent in Russian state media, Shakhnazarov accused the United States of starting the war—and trying to prolong it indefinitely. He speculated: “What are they achieving by prolonging the war? First of all, public opinion within Russia is changing. People are shocked by the masses of refugees, the humanitarian catastrophe, people start to imagine themselves in their place. It’s starting to affect them. To say that the Nazis are doing that is not quite convincing, strictly speaking... On top of that, economic sanctions will start to affect them, and seriously. There will probably be scarcity. A lot of products we don’t produce, even the simplest ones. There’ll be unemployment. They really thought through these sanctions, they’re hitting us with real continuity. It’s a well-planned operation... Yes, this is a war of the United States with Russia... These sanctions are hitting us very precisely. This threatens the change of public opinion in Russia, the destabilization of our power structures... with the possibility of a full destabilization of the country and a civil war. This apocalyptic scenario is based on the script written by the Americans. They benefit through us dragging out the military operation. We need to end it somehow. If we achieved the demilitarization and freed the Donbas, that is sufficient... I have a hard time imagining taking cities such as Kyiv. I can’t imagine how that would look. If this picture starts to transform into an absolute humanitarian disaster, even our close allies like China and India will be forced to distance themselves from us. This public opinion, with which they’re saturating the entire world, can play out badly for us... Ending this operation will stabilize things within the country.”

The host frowned at the apparent departure from the officially-approved line of thinking and deferred to the commander-in-chief. However, the next expert agreed with Shakhnazarov. Semyon Bagdasarov, a Russian Middle East expert, grimly said: “We didn’t even feel the impact of the sanctions just yet... We need to be ready for total isolation. I’m not panicking, just calling things by their proper name.”

Soloviev angrily sniped: “Gotcha. We should just lay down and die.”

Bagdasarov continued: “Now about Ukraine. I agree with Karen. We had prior experiences of bringing in our troops, destroying the military infrastructure and leaving. I think that our army fulfilled their task of demilitarization of the country by destroying most of their military installations... To restore their military they will need at least 10 years... Let Ukrainians do this denazification on their own. We can’t do it for them... As for their neutrality, yes, we should squeeze it out of them, and that’s it. We don’t need to stay there longer than necessary... Do we need to get into another Afghanistan, but even worse? There are more people and they’re more advanced in their handling of weapons. We don’t need that. Enough already... As for the sanctions, the world has never seen such massive sanctions.”

Dmitry Abzalov, Director of the Center for Strategic Communications, pointed out that even though energy prices will go up for most of the West, it won’t do much to ease the pain for the Russians: “We’ll still be the ones taking the terminal hit, and an incomparable one, even though other countries will also suffer some losses. We’ll all be going to hell together—except for maybe China—but going to hell together with the French or Germans won’t make our people feel any better.” Abzalov argued that after taking additional territories in Eastern Ukraine, Russia should get out of dodge, believing that all western companies that temporarily paused their operations in Russia would then rush to come back. “It’s about toxicity, not just sanctions... It will go away once the situation stabilizes.”

Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, state TV experts predicted that Russia could overtake it in a matter of minutes or a few days. Stunned by the fierce resistance on the part of Ukrainians, Soloviev described them as “the army that is second in Europe, after ours, and which has been prepared for eight years and armed with everything you can imagine.”

Soloviev added: “This is a frightening war that is being waged against us by America.”

To lighten the mood in the studio, the host resorted to one of the favorite pastimes of many Kremlin propagandists: playing yet another Fox News clip of Tucker Carlson and his frequent guest Ret. Col. Doug Macgregor. In the translated video, Macgregor predicted Russia’s easy military victories over Ukraine and its total invincibility to western sanctions. Soloviev sighed and smiled: “He’s a lot more optimistic than my previous experts in the studio.”

 

[Trey3216 15355]

9 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Damn voice to text.  I’ll give it credit though, it can also hear the voices in my head

"Don't cry for me you're already the voice inside my head"

-Lobo's phone

[956 Worldwide 34756]

13 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

The whole idea of bio weapons is stupid anyway.

Infectious diseases are the most frightening because they can spread long after the initial attack. But that also makes them difficult to contain and imprecise. How do you prevent the disease from going pandemic and fucking your own population over? Mass preemptive vaccines? Ha. Good fucking luck with that.

And non-infectious diseases, although a frightening way to die, are less effective than just blowing shit up with conventional arms. And is anthrax really more gruesome than being blown to bits?

Sir, did you not carefully follow what Russian state media told you? The Americans would use the natural migratory patterns of birds and feeding patterns of bats to get the bugs in the right place. And they were genetically modifying the nasties so they’d only work on Russians.  I mean, DUH! 

[RDCanecutter 26468]

4 hours ago, Constant said:

 

Dead radio batteries in Russian tanks?

[Constant 6754]

Just now, RDCanecutter said:

Dead radio batteries in Russian tanks?

[956 Worldwide 34756]

The United States has lost one of our own.

 

[Saint Tacky 1621]

3 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

have sabotaged the railway to stop Russian military equipment from going to Ukraine (considered terrorism and is punishable by life in prison or death sentence)

Per Belarus, "Anonymous" took credit for doing that by hacking the system over a week ago.

[Sbbruin 21867]

1 hour ago, Chopper said:

Defense analysts assume a multiplier of 3x KIA to get the numbered on injured troops. If you assume 7k russian KIA, add another 21k for wounded. Meaning an estimated 28k russian troops out of action, depending on the number of KIA.

And adding to the fumbling and bumbling propaganda mentioned by @atomheartbevohere's a visibly nervous Sergei Lavrov at his press conference this morning while making absurd claims.

 

How do you find any basis, or common ground, from which to start a negotiation when someone says shit like "that's WHY we have soldiers there, to provide humanitarian relief to those Ukranians being held hostage by the fascists!"  If they just start saying black is white, up is down, cats are dogs, etc, there's no way to even begin discussions.

[RDCanecutter 26468]

4 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

These people will not be conquered.

 

Question for the Russian speakers: at 1:14 when she starts yelling "goluboi," is that in the literal sense of "light blue" as in the Ukrainian flag, or is she going slang with it?

[Horn of Gabriel 1671]

6 hours ago, burntorangebongos said:

Can we pay that in dollars? Brrrrrtt. Here you go China, thank you for playing. Oh, you own a lot of shit here and it is worthless and you are bankrupt? Awww

Or something like that. I don’t know high finance but if they do that, they fuck themselves too.

It's actually really interesting RE: US v. China that MAD is not just about nukes now.  It's about debt and trade.

The scary thing about MAD, aside from the world-ending nuclear apocalypse, is how you get to that point.  MAD works if both sides are roughly equal.  For US v. Russia sure it's close enough.  China is working hard to make that a triad (see what I did there?).  But what happens when a country like Russia manages their country so poorly, or gets sanctioned so hard that everything craters?  Poverty, starvation, etc?  What is left to lose at that point via MAD?  The "D" in MAD only works if you have something you care about that you don't want destroyed.

[TexasEd 8077]

2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Ok, so seeing two pieces of pretty critical disinformation spreading related to the war. Both of them are also being spread by a very influential U.S. blogger who has been recruited as a Viktor Orban fellow (I wish I were making that up). I’m not telling you to go over to his Twitter and drag him Surly style, but I’m not telling you NOT to do it. Both of these are clearly Kremlin narratives and not useful idiot narratives.

1. The Mariupol hospital bombing was a false flag.  The Nazi Azov battalion evacuated the building a long time ago, then started using it as a base.  Then after it was bombed, they rushed to use crisis actors to get a propaganda win for the Ukrainians and bait us into World War III! The proof is that a very pregnant Mariupol area beauty blogger was in the photographs. There is of course no way that she was, you know, at the fucking maternity hospital because she is from Mariupol and super pregnant. Russian gargoyles and their trolls are now slamming her online.

 

2. The gotdamn bio-weapons lab. They’ve amped it up to 11- now it is a whole CHAIN of bio labs, where the Americans and Ukrainians were nefariously planning to create viruses that spread via natural bird migrations to Russia and that were targeted at ethnic Slavs. Also, of course, they were weaponizing COVID-19 and doing experiments on bats.  And they escaped with all the evidence to Poland. Dirt bags! 
 

Anyway, here’s the Twitter of the American blogger who is getting paid by Orban and spreading this, he should be ratioed.

 

Seeing the second one spread by a "friend" who should know better (ex-FDA) and need a way to cite this a blatant Russian propaganda other than he probably saw it on his favorite news network.

[Pato del Muerto 52588]

51 minutes ago, Bravo said:

oh good. political hot takes.

 

14 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

CR--->

Identifying a group of people I think are idiots and then saying they will conflate the two georgias is not political. 
 

could make the same joke about some folks and Odessa. 

Edited March 10, 2022 by Pato del Muerto

[RDCanecutter 26468]

3 hours ago, Celery Man said:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca6FYWMKmXl/?utm_medium=copy_link
 

 

this picture with the 1920a era Soviet light machine gun

It worked then, it works now, and it'll still work 100 years from now.

[Orange&White 5539]

[Chopper 17245]

 

[phdhorn 6224]

This is a relatively long article on how the Poland/MIG/F-16 deal fell through, but well-written:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/10/poland-fighter-jet-deal-ukraine-russia-00016038

sorta tl;/dr:

1) Ukraine pleading for more aircraft
2) Negotiations began between Poles (when they offered a deal) and a few other NATO countries.
3) But, EU foreign affairs sec./foreign policy chief Josep Borrell opened mouth 2/28 and said, "we got us a DEAL here."  But it wasn't yet.**
4) Ukraine ran with it, partly out of hope, partly "cat's outta the bag" pressure to provide.
5) Poland, Slovakia and Romania (all sources for the MIG's) knocked it down and cited that they won't enter Ukrainian airspace to deliver them 3/2.
6) Enter U.S. with that complex "MIG's to Ukraine, F-16's to Poland" potential deal 3/3.
7) Deal seemed to have legs, but then quickly halted, mostly due to U.S. military experts' fears.  (F-16's WAY too high-tech even for Poland and they didn't want them having that tech so close to Russia, plus the biggie - supplying a NATO country with these to be taken into Ukraine = ramping up to war.)
8 ) U.S. tells Poland though, go ahead and send MIGS if u want... however the F-16's we'll give you will take months to deliver (needs a lot of vetting).
9) Poland a bit irritated, then offered the 28 MIG's to Rammstein, where Ukrainian pilots would travel, pick up, and fly into Ukraine.
10) U.S. caught by surprise for that, still said too much U.S. involvement (use of U.S. base) = ramping up, plus Scholz said, "no, not in Germany you won't").
11) U.S. military experts said nix it, Poles were out of order, and it's too much of an escalation.  Encouraged Poles to deliver as they might/could.
12) Tensions got a little tense, Harris sent over to kind of smooth things out.

** It's worth noting that a deal might have been doable in secret ("how did those MIG's get there?") if Borrell didn't shoot his mouth off too quickly.

[Nicole44 22077]

 

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

1 hour ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

What's the Russian equivalent of "Fragged"? 

Bovary had a big tank battle recently so KIA is possible.

Edited March 10, 2022 by ShaggyBevo RIP

[956 Worldwide 34756]

6 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Question for the Russian speakers: at 1:14 when she starts yelling "goluboi," is that in the literal sense of "light blue" as in the Ukrainian flag, or is she going slang with it?

I THINK she’s saying “golubyy zhovtyy” which would be the colors of the flag in Ukrainian but she could be saying something else. Hard for me to hear. It’s pretty mild slang at this point and you’d likely go with something else to make that insult. 

[Bevo 13600]

1 hour ago, Bravo said:

One of the most shocking things about all this the leadership, training and communication of the russian army. their tactics leave them open to mass losses, their logistics planning is causing columns to run out of gas and troops to starve, they leave communications over unsecure radio and cell phones. We all made this army to be out a lot more than it actually was for many decades now it looks.

That's all well and good until Russian paratroopers start falling from the skies in Colorado.

[Nicole44 22077]

It’s like a literal Easter Egg hunt for Russian weapons/vehicles. Hope Ukrainians put them to good use or sell them to Taiwan at a discount. (How the hell does auto spell come up with disco mount from discount?)

 

[MissingInAction 25178]

If Poland wanted to go total fucking gangsta they'd drop out of NATO just to join the fight.

[The Dog 44138]

This and the propagandists changing their tone are interesting developments. 

[tx 3 putt 77395]

1 minute ago, MissingInAction said:

If Poland wanted to go total fucking gangsta they'd drop out of NATO just to join the fight.

‘leave of absence’ 

[Nicole44 22077]

1 minute ago, MissingInAction said:

If Poland wanted to go total fucking gangsta they'd drop out of NATO just to join the fight.

They have something like 2 million refugees and the EU took some vote to fine them or something earlier for an unrelated deal. I mean inflicting 2 million refugees onto a country could be considered an act of war if you’d be inclined to think that way.

[NoName 16397]

2 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

If Poland wanted to go total fucking gangsta they'd drop out of NATO just to join the fight.

then Russia would likely engage in a war there as well, since there would be no concern about Article 5 getting triggered.

[conVINCEd 21469]

3 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

‘leave of absence’ 

I’ve always liked sabbatical.  A bit more fancy sounding than leave of absence.

Edited March 10, 2022 by conVINCEd

[Nicole44 22077]

Damn Oryx has been busy updating his list of Russian stuff today…

 

[NoName 16397]

9 minutes ago, The Dog said:

This and the propagandists changing their tone are interesting developments. 

this seems like 100% UKR propaganda.

zero way to know who is selling, zero way to see if it is FSB/RUS administration and zero way to prove it. maybe it is just people leaving what is a fucking active war zone.

edit: yeah, this just seems fake. no links to where it's from, no nothing. Kyiv example below

Kyiv apartments for sale: https://www.house-ua.com/en/for_sale-flat/city-kyiv/map-1/xy-30.09841918945313,50.06948077670394,30.96908569335938,50.818083045912985/z-10

map:

Edited March 10, 2022 by NoName

[MissingInAction 25178]

4 minutes ago, NoName said:

then Russia would likely engage in a war there as well, since there would be no concern about Article 5 getting triggered.

I don't know if you've been paying attention, but Poland would wipe the earth with Russian blood. 

[Captainant 27762]

Just now, NoName said:

this seems like 100% UKR propaganda.

zero way to know who is selling, zero way to see if it is FSB/RUS administration and zero way to prove it. maybe it is just people leaving what is a fucking active war zone.

The Crimean peninsula isn't a war zone, it's been part of russia since 2014. 

[ABSR 5323]

23 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

How do you find any basis, or common ground, from which to start a negotiation when someone says shit like "that's WHY we have soldiers there, to provide humanitarian relief to those Ukranians being held hostage by the fascists!"  If they just start saying black is white, up is down, cats are dogs, etc, there's no way to even begin discussions.

2+2 = 5

[Brisketexan 105318]

7 minutes ago, The Dog said:

This and the propagandists changing their tone are interesting developments. 

It really is.

Don't give too much weight to the propaganda.  Follow the actions.  And yes, when the propagandists start abandoning their rah-rah rhetoric, that's telling.

Also, I saw on a post above that Ukraine is averaging 66 Russian vehicles per day destroyed.  Even if that's 50% high, destroying 40 per day is a rate of attrition that Russia can't take for another month.  They can't advance very much, and they can't resupply like they need to, if that's the rate they're losing shit.

And that doesn't even account for their air losses (particularly helicopters).  It's a huge gamble operating those choppers over an area Russia doesn't completely control, which significantly hampers their ability to be part of a combined forward assault.

[NoName 16397]

2 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

I don't know if you've been paying attention, but Poland would wipe the earth with Russian blood. 

what's the end game there?

Poland isn't going to push to Moscow and take over the country - everyone just end up with a 20 year war over the border between military powers all for nothing. Poland gains nothing by going to war with RUS and in a war of attrition the answer is to probably take the country with 100m more population and who has shown they DGAF about war crimes.

[sasquatch69 603]

11 minutes ago, Bravo said:

I hear Crimea is very nice in the summer. Might be able to finally get my hands on some cheap oceanfront real estate!

It really is.  There's a well-known song about the beauty of the principal waterway in the region...





Crimea River.

 

 

(ducks)

[The Dog 44138]

5 minutes ago, NoName said:

this seems like 100% UKR propaganda.

zero way to know who is selling, zero way to see if it is FSB/RUS administration and zero way to prove it. maybe it is just people leaving what is a fucking active war zone.

I agree that's what it could be. It's more that they are saying this while the Russian TV stations are now saying they should leave Ukraine at the same time. Probably nothing but just something I thought was interesting. 

[MissingInAction 25178]

1 minute ago, NoName said:

what's the end game there?

Poland isn't going to push to Moscow and take over the country - everyone just end up with a 20 year war over the border between military powers all for nothing. Poland gains nothing by going to war with RUS and in a war of attrition the answer is to probably take the country with 100m more population and who has shown they DGAF about war crimes.

I'm just playing out my Michael Bay fueled action fantasies. 

When do we air drop some Wolverines swag for the troops?

[NoName 16397]

3 minutes ago, Captainant said:

The Crimean peninsula isn't a war zone, it's been part of russia since 2014. 

as of today...what do you think happens there if NATO gets involved in Ukraine? or if Russia is forced back to their (original) borders with UKR?

it isn't like the Crimean peninsula is exactly a "safe zone" for the next 1/3/5/10/25/50 years. not exactly like your Real Estate - especially if they stay part of Russia - is going to be increasing in value with everything going on at the moment sanctions wise.

 

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3868]

1 hour ago, Chopper said:

I've been struggling to understand what productive use they can make of the business properties they appear to plan to seize. It's not like the components are manufactured in Russia. Would China ship Apple's IP to Russia? I don't think so, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot. Russia can't even open their stock market or manufacture automobiles - what can they do with the businesses they're talking about making state property?

Not much. It is just tit for tat.

[Doc Reeves 6434]

2 hours ago, Nicole44 said:

So I guess we will all allow them to take it as well…we need to sack up and kill Putin. Maybe Macron can talk to him some more about it? Maybe we can make Russia’s economy even worse off and that will do it? Maybe if he’s charged with war crimes? But god forbid let’s not let migs fly from NATO bases…let’s keep doing more of the same stuff and maybe Putin won’t go for Georgia and one of his own men will kill him…stop fucking around and assassinate him. Otherwise we will wind up on WW3 any way but will have allowed thousands upon thousands to die first and have left Ukraine in ruins and possibly other countries on Putin’s wishlist before we do the right thing and put a bullet in his skull and throw him in a wood chipper. 
 

 

And the world be like

 

 

[Orange&White 5539]

12 minutes ago, NoName said:

then Russia would likely engage in a war there as well, since there would be no concern about Article 5 getting triggered.

With what? Are you saying they'd move their entire Ukranian operation to Poland? Or do you think they could bring in more equipment/people? They are losing equipment by the minute, it has become obvious that their soldiers are not anything as expected, they couldn't logistics their way out of a paper bag and they'd leave their own homeland defenseless.

I would think that the world and Poland would be licking their chops if Putin tried to double down this operation to include Poland at the same time.

[Trey3216 15355]

4 minutes ago, sasquatch69 said:

It really is.  There's a well-known song about the beauty of the principal waterway in the region...





Crimea River.

 

 

(ducks)

[MillerEP 30496]

Russian Su-25SM shot down, tail number: RF-91969 

[You don't know me 1161]

1 minute ago, Bravo said:

Looks like the pilot didn't quite make it out.