Русский корабль - иди нахуй

[Brisketexan 105465]

2 minutes ago, Hook1997 said:

We should be more like UK and Sweden, no matter the total amounts, atleast they were serious about not trading with Russia and cut over 75%.  A 35% cut is kinda embarrassing at this point.  

Dude, if you think I'm gonna give up my Russian caviar just because Russia is a murderous, ruthless regime, committing war crimes left and right in an unjustified genocidal war....well, you don't know how shallow I really am, good sir!

[MillerEP 30501]

 

[Bevo 13605]

24 minutes ago, MillerEP said:

 

Don't know if this goes here or on Can You Help Me With This, but on the same page as your tweet: Miss Argentina and Miss Puerto Rico reveal they secretly got married

 

 

 

@TODAYshow

4 hours ago

Miss Argentina and Miss Puerto Rico reveal they secretly got married

Miss Argentina 2020, Mariana Varela, 26, and Miss Puerto Rico 2020, Fabiola Valentin, 22, wrote on Instagram that they got married on Oct. 28 after having kept their relationship out of the public eye.

[Brisketexan 105465]

1 minute ago, Bevo said:

Don't know if this goes here or on Can You Help Me With This, but on the same page as your tweet: Miss Argentina and Miss Puerto Rico reveal they secretly got married

 

 

 

@TODAYshow

4 hours ago

Miss Argentina and Miss Puerto Rico reveal they secretly got married

Miss Argentina 2020, Mariana Varela, 26, and Miss Puerto Rico 2020, Fabiola Valentin, 22, wrote on Instagram that they got married on Oct. 28 after having kept their relationship out of the public eye.

The war in Ukraine has me close to concluding that the human species is without any merit.......but then stories like this surface, and give me such great hope.

[MillerEP 30501]

 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

8 minutes ago, Bevo said:

Don't know if this goes here or on Can You Help Me With This, but on the same page as your tweet: Miss Argentina and Miss Puerto Rico reveal they secretly got married

 

 

 

@TODAYshow

4 hours ago

Miss Argentina and Miss Puerto Rico reveal they secretly got married

Miss Argentina 2020, Mariana Varela, 26, and Miss Puerto Rico 2020, Fabiola Valentin, 22, wrote on Instagram that they got married on Oct. 28 after having kept their relationship out of the public eye.

my favorite part of this story is every part of this story

[Brisketexan 105465]

6 minutes ago, MillerEP said:

 

 

 

Texas:

[AUS-97HORN 11824]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 

Texas:

you suck a dick  ONE TIME and now you are marked as a cocksucker.... so unfair

[strangulation! 1716]

2 minutes ago, AUS-97HORN said:

ONE TIME 

[statsman 5486]

Interesting WSJ article about the social impact of the war. 
 

Quote

https://www.wsj.com/articles/recaptured ... ticle_pos3

SHEVCHENKOVE, Ukraine—When Russian armored columns drove into this rural community of 20,000 people on the first day of the invasion, Mayor Valeriy Prykhodko tried to count the tanks, artillery pieces and fighting vehicles that rolled past his windows.

After the first few hundred, he gave up. “It was too big for counting,” Mr. Prykhodko said. “The horror.”

Located some 35 miles from the Russian border, Shevchenkove fell without a fight the afternoon of Feb. 24. In the six months of Russian rule that followed, many locals came to believe that Moscow, with its awe-inspiring military might, would stay here forever.

Unwilling to work under Russian authority, Mr. Prykhodko tried for a time to resist orders, then fled to Ukrainian-controlled territories. But the municipality’s second-in-command, Executive Secretary Nadiya Sheluh, stayed on the job even once the Russians raised their red-blue-white flag over the building.





State media footage in September showed Russian President Vladimir Putin firing a rifle while visiting a training site for reservists. His decision to mobilize new recruits to fight in Ukraine spurred protests and drove thousands of men to flee the country. Photo: Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AP

Mr. Prykhodko, who is now back in office, recalls being surprised and outraged. But he also acknowledged that many in Shevchenkove think his former colleague did the right thing by helping keep basic services functioning through the occupation. “Our people are split about her,” he said. “Old ladies here say they are thankful to her, that she helped them and fed them.”

Ukrainian forces came back to Shevchenkove in September, as part of their rapid offensive in the eastern Kharkiv region. Now, like other towns and villages in recently liberated parts of Ukraine, Shevchenkove is torn from within by tensions between those who escaped or opposed the Russians—and those who are viewed as having accommodated the enemy.

The delicate task of sorting out one from the other falls on investigators from the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, and the National Police, who are collecting evidence in recently retaken territories and in large parts of the country that remain under Moscow’s rule.

In Shevchenkove, a few citizens tried to resist the occupation, scribbling anti-Russian graffiti on walls and passing intelligence to Ukrainian troops. Some others enthusiastically embraced the invaders, taking government positions and joining the Russian-created security forces. The majority in Shevchenkove, as in other occupied areas, tried to survive. As time went by, they were increasingly forced to make compromises with the occupiers, accepting Russian humanitarian aid, pensions or jobs.

At the outset of the war, Ukraine sought to undermine Russia’s hold over occupied areas with strict anti-collaboration laws. Voluntarily joining Russia’s education system on occupied territories can be punished with up to three years’ imprisonment. Taking a managerial role in the Russian-created administrations can mean up to 10 years in prison. Participation in Russian-created law-enforcement and security structures can be punished with up to 15 years behind bars—life imprisonment if it caused the death of a Ukrainian citizen.

Nadiya Sheluh, the municipality's executive secretary during the Russian occupation, was questioned by investigators.

Dozens of presumed collaborators have been gunned down by unknown assailants in occupied areas in recent months, mostly in the south of the country. Now that many of the formerly Russian-occupied areas are back under Kyiv’s control here in the east, Ukrainian authorities say they are taking a measured approach.

“We don’t work like the Russians. We don’t keep people in torture chambers,” said Serhiy Bolvinov, head of the investigations department of Ukraine’s National Police in the Kharkiv region. “It’s not enough that someone comes to us and points a finger at someone else to say, ‘This is a collaborator.’ We need to investigate according to the law and to look for solid evidence that will stand up in court.”

In the first month since the Ukrainian offensive reclaimed occupied parts of Kharkiv, he said, law-enforcement agencies opened a total of 132 criminal investigations, with 21 people formally notified of suspicions against them and four others indicted and sent to court.

An SBU investigator in Kharkiv added that rounding up everyone who collaborated with the Russians one way or another would be impossible because of the sheer number of people who broke the Ukrainian law to survive. “In every village here, they tell us that everyone in their own village resisted, but that the next village over is full of collaborators,” the investigator said.

While the Russian-appointed mayor and a few other senior collaborators fled Shevchenkove alongside Russian forces, many others who worked in the occupation administration and education systems, such as Ms. Sheluh, remain here, free to roam the streets after their initial questioning by Ukrainian authorities.

Ms. Sheluh, a former radio broadcaster who speaks flawless literary Ukrainian in a town where most speak either Russian or a mixed dialect known as surzhyk, once unsuccessfully ran for the district legislature on a pro-Western list and showed no pro-Russian inclinations before the war, according to villagers.

Interviewed in her home, Ms. Sheluh said she never accepted pay from the occupiers and worked with the Russians only because she sought to help Shevchenkove’s people in their darkest hour. “I was defending the interests of our local citizens,” she said. “Mostly old people and children stayed here, and they needed the baby formula, the diapers,” she said.

Some in Shevchenkove defend her; others are furious, demanding swift punishment for Ms. Sheluh and anyone else who helped the Russian occupation machine. “Why are our boys dying out there? Why has my grandson not seen his father for seven months? So that we forgive all these people as if nothing had happened?” asked Olha Usyk, a director of one of Shevchenkove’s schools whose son-in-law serves in the Ukrainian military.

Ms. Usyk was especially angry that Ms. Sheluh ordered schools to reopen under Russian authority. Russia has sought to erase Ukrainian identity by teaching in Russian and implementing that country’s curriculum, part of Moscow’s plan to annex the conquered areas.

Speaking at an improvised gathering on Shevchenkove’s leafy main square, Ms. Usyk and other educators complained that the returning Ukrainian authorities were slow to weed out Russian collaborators. “What’s scary is that, on the front line, it’s clear who is the enemy. But here, it’s murky, a real swamp,” said Maria Danylova, a teacher. “Everyone who collaborated with the Russians here was making their own choices. Nobody put guns to their heads.”

In the first days of Russian occupation, Shevchenkove—named after Ukraine’s national poet who spent a decade in penal exile for his opposition to Russian imperial rule—was largely left alone.


 

Shevchenkove residents wait for humanitarian aid in the main square last month.

Still, residents faced wrenching decisions. Serhiy Kovshar, a former police lieutenant whose son was killed fighting Russian proxies in the Donbas region in 2015, quietly removed a commemorative plaque on the front of his house. By May, he had joined the new occupation police force, say local residents who saw him at checkpoints and on patrols.

At the community’s 73-bed hospital, Russian soldiers arrived with one of their men, with an inflamed appendix, and demanded at gunpoint that doctors operate on him, said Natalia Nesvoyeva, who served as acting director. The surgery was successful, she said.

Over the course of the occupation, more than 100 Russian soldiers ended up at the Shevchenkove hospital, usually for conditions that weren’t life-threatening, according to Ms. Nesvoyeva. “They had shot themselves in the foot, or had hypertension crises after an overdose of something, or frostbite,” she said.

Ukrainian officials say that providing urgent medical care to Russian soldiers is protected under international humanitarian law and thus isn’t considered collaboration.
Meanwhile, Mayor Prykhodko and other local officials worked on their own to try to secure supplies, bake bread, and keep basic services running.

On March 5, agitated Russian soldiers arrived at Mr. Prykhodko’s office in the two-story government headquarters on Shevchenkove’s main square, he said. As soldiers pointed guns at the mayor, their commander demanded that he hand over lists of locals who served in the military, particularly the Donbas, that he take down the Ukrainian flag that still flew over the municipality, and that he write a letter to Vladimir Putin welcoming the Russian takeover.

“I will throw a hand grenade if you don’t,” the Russian officer threatened. Mr. Prykhodko, surrounded by some 15 staff members, decided the threat was empty and stood his ground. The Russians ended up driving away and the Ukrainian flag kept flying.

Valeriy Prykhodko, mayor of Shevchenkove, refused orders from the Russians, then escaped.

Initially, Russia’s presence in Shevchenkove mostly consisted of ill-equipped troops from the Russian-controlled statelets of Donbas. They demanded that Mr. Prykhodko allocate them housing. When he refused, he said, they settled in vacant homes and started looting. “They said they have been ordered to operate in a self-reliant fashion,” Mr. Prykhodko said. “They were dirty and stinky. We knew they just drank all night, and didn’t do much else.”

By April 18, a new batch of disheveled, shellshocked Russian troops arrived here, redeployed after the Russian withdrawal from Kyiv. “If you had forgotten about Irpin and Bucha, we will remind you,” they shouted, referring to the massacre of Ukrainian civilians in those suburbs of Kyiv. There were no massacres in Shevchenkove, however.

Ms. Danylova, a teacher of Ukrainian and one of the most passionate pro-Ukrainian activists in Shevchenkove, had spent the previous four decades collecting artifacts for the museum of Ukrainian traditional culture that was housed in the local high school.

Having heard about how the Russians burned a museum containing the paintings of naïve-style folk artist Maria Prymachenko near Kyiv, she decided to rescue the century-old embroidered towels, shirts and wedding dresses and hid them in her cellar and in friends’ homes. To do so, Ms. Danylova and her son, Ruslan Shokirov, had to brave Russian checkpoints.

“There is no doubt that they would have destroyed these items if they had caught us—they were burning everything Ukrainian. The only question is what they would have done to us,” Mr. Shokirov said. All the artifacts survived.


Maria Danylova, a teacher of Ukrainian, shows one of the traditional embroideries she managed to hide from Russian occupiers.

On April 27, a different kind of Russian security force, well-equipped and in modern vehicles, arrived at the Shevchenkove municipality. “Run away, they are hunting for you,” Mr. Prykhodko said he was told by colleagues. He jumped on his bicycle and waited out the night in the dark behind the outhouse at his brother’s home. The Russians spread word they wanted him to start working under their authority.

“All they want is for you to open the doors of the municipality and distribute their humanitarian aid. What’s wrong with that? They won’t do anything to you,” Mr. Prykhodko said he was told by a local woman who spoke with the Russians. “Are you crazy? I am a Ukrainian village mayor, not a Russian one,” he said he retorted. Unwilling to collaborate, Mr. Prykhodko fled Shevchenkove the following day and made his way through the front lines to Ukrainian government-controlled territory.

In his place, the Russians installed a local horse breeder, Andrey Stryzhko, who never hid his sympathies for Moscow. Usually dressed in black and wearing the papakha woolen hat of Russian Cossacks, Mr. Stryzhko used to hang the red Soviet flag outside his home even before the war. One of his first steps was to have himself filmed stripping away the Ukrainian coat of arms on Shevchenkove’s main square. He also ordered the removal of a monument to Ukrainian veterans of the war in Donbas.

Unlike Mr. Prykhodko, Ms. Sheluh, the community’s second-in-command, remained on her job. She played down her contact with the Russians. “I was in my office downstairs and they and their authority was upstairs,” she said. “I just worked in my own place.”

Ms. Sheluh sat in on meetings with the new Russian authorities. Some were filmed for Russian propaganda channels. Mr. Prykhodko said he terminated Ms. Sheluh’s employment and stopped her Ukrainian salary payments once he learned about her work with the Russians.

 

While most Shevchenkove police withdrew to government-held areas in February, some officers joined the new Russian-run force that detained curfew breakers and put them to work sweeping streets and picking weeds. The villagers learned a new verb—“to kadyrov”—which meant beating inmates with a large wooden pole, a practice introduced by troops loyal to Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, a key Putin ally.

“It was a bad time. I was afraid to walk on the street alone,” said Yana Holoboyko, a high-school student. “The Russians were very aggressive, especially when they got drunk, driving around and picking up women.”

On Ukraine’s constitution day in late June, block-length graffiti appeared on one of Shevchenkove’s streets. “Shevchenkove is Ukraine. Death to occupiers. Stryzhko—you’ll kick the bucket,” it said. Nobody bothered to paint it over.

Around the same time, Aleksandr Sidyakin, head of the executive committee of Russia’s ruling party, came to nearby Kupyansk to announce that locals could now start receiving Russian passports. “Russia is here for eternity!” he proclaimed to applause.

In the Shevchenkove hospital, doctors and nurses did what they could, treating civilians and Russian soldiers alike. “The Russians always came here with guns. We were afraid of them, and they were afraid of us. You never knew what they could do,” said the head nurse, Olha Kokhan.

Unlike in Kupyansk, where most hospital staff quickly switched to a Russian contract with its significantly higher pay, the doctors and nurses in Shevchenkove continued to receive Ukrainian salaries in their bank accounts.

With no Ukrainian banks functioning in occupied areas, they could only withdraw cash, at a commission of as high as 35%, via entrepreneurial middlemen from the Donbas who arrived with an internet hot spot that allowed online bank transfers.


Gradually, pressure to work with the Russians became hard to resist. A few of the female staff started dating Russian soldiers and officers. Vitaliy Ganchev, head of the Russian-created interim administration of the Kharkiv region, and other officials came to Shevchenkove on Aug. 23 to meet with the hospital staff, telling them that there was no point in holding out.
“You still hope the Ukrainians will come back? No, they will never come back,” Ms. Kokhan, the nurse, said Mr. Ganchev told them.

Olha Kokhan, head nurse of the local hospital, says Russian officials told staffers that resistance was pointless.

Russia paid more attention to schools. The occupation administration’s building in Kupyansk is still packed to the brim with Russian textbooks, teaching aids and educational posters. Ukrainian books and materials were removed and destroyed.

In August, Ms. Sheluh, the Shevchenkove executive secretary, called schoolteachers and directors, as well as the staff of the local kindergarten, demanding they reopen their institutions on Sept. 1. While all the school directors refused, Oksana Simutina, the local kindergarten director, agreed.

The kindergarten staff spent two weeks cleaning up the facility that was closed since February, washing curtains and sheets, sweeping the floors, and culling waist-high weeds, she said. Some 20 children showed up on Sept. 1. “There can be no politics in a kindergarten. We never communicated with the Russians,” said Ms. Simutina.

Out of the community’s 288 schoolteachers, only about one-tenth showed up as classes started on Sept. 1, according to Mr. Prykhodko, the mayor.

Teacher Ludmyla Zdorovko said Russian-appointed officials in Shevchenkove told her, “Go to work or you will remain jobless forever.” She added, “The people who went to work for them, it was not because they believed in the Russian world. Not many people did here. They were greedy and just wanted money.”

Ms. Sheluh said no Ukrainian books were destroyed in the community’s schools, and no Russian symbols displayed. Her decision was driven by patriotism, she said. “I asked our teachers to go to work and teach the Ukrainian language because I didn’t want them to bring outsiders to schools,” she said. “This is our land, we all grew up here, and nobody can educate better than our own people.”

On Sept. 5, senior staff of the Shevchenkove hospital were summoned to Kupyansk for a meeting with the occupation administration. “They asked that we collaborate and told us that we have no other choice,” Ms. Kokhan said. “And we almost agreed. Six months had gone by. It’s a very long time.”

If they had signed on to the Russian health system, as they planned to do days later, they would have been considered collaborators under Ukrainian law. But the following day, the Ukrainian offensive in the Kharkiv region began.

Russian soldiers disappeared from Shevchenkove’s hospital before dawn. Then, a few hours later, on Sept. 7, Ukrainian forces showed up on the street outside. “You can’t even imagine the joy, the euphoria we all felt when we walked out and suddenly saw that finally our boys are back here, with our flags, right outside,” said the acting hospital director, Ms. Nesvoyeva.

Unlike Kupyansk, severely damaged in fighting, Shevchenkove survived the occupation largely intact and with few casualties. Mr. Stryzhko, the Russian-appointed mayor, and a handful of other Russian-appointed officials escaped with the last Russian troops. Many other Russian sympathizers remain.

“There are still people here in town who wait for the Russians to return,” said Yulia Fedorova, a paramedic in the hospital. “I have one in my own building. I tell her—if you like them so much, why are you lining up for Ukrainian humanitarian aid on the square instead of running away to your Russia?”

Soon after the Russian retreat, Mr. Prykhodko returned to his duties in the municipality. Ukrainian security authorities set up an office, too, looking for collaborators.
 

Mr. Kovshar, the former policeman, was detained for a couple of hours, and then released. Interviewed in his home, he acknowledged that he briefly joined the Russian-led police but said he did it only to steal the list of local hunters who owned rifles, so that the Russians wouldn’t have it. He said he passed intelligence to Ukrainian forces all along. The plaque commemorating his son’s heroism in Donbas is now affixed again on his home, a Ukrainian flag flying above it
 

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by statsman

[Pescado_Rojo 19443]

9 minutes ago, strangulation! said:

User name something, something

[tx 3 putt 77610]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Dude, if you think I'm gonna give up my Russian caviar just because Russia is a murderous, ruthless regime, committing war crimes left and right in an unjustified genocidal war....well, you don't know how shallow I really am, good sir!

[atomheartbevo 89859]

2 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

I bolded all of the things in your post that I don't think have ever crossed Putin's mind as shit he fucking cares about. 

I fully admit he’s a fucking dumbass when it comes to military and geopolitical strategy, but Putin is scared of being knocked off/losing power.   He’s very scared, thanks to his KGB background and his reading of Russian/Soviet history.

Killing Belorussians with Russian nukes will spur on the anti-Lukashenko/Putin faction like nobody ‘s business, and  Putin needs him and Belarus. Belarusians are fine with ammo and vehicles being given to Russia, but the fact that Belarus refused to join Putin’s Special Military Operation means Lukashenko (or Putin) is at least reading the room and that Putin was unwilling to force Belarus to join in.   If fallout drifted into Belarus, Lukashenko would have to toss Putin under the bus (plenty of those folks probably remember Chernobyl). Putin does not have the forces to put down a rebellion there either,

Killing Russian soldiers (and sympathetic Ukrainians) with Russian nukes after we already keep seeing mutinies happening amongst Russian troops nearly every day over things like a lack of pay or body armor or first aid kits - that’s a fantastic way to get a repeat of 1917/1918.  Russian social media is already full of Russian soldiers bitching about going to the meat grinder   Toss in Russian soldiers getting nukes and yeah, Putin is done.

 

[MillerEP 30501]

 

[MillerEP 30501]

^Telegram is saying she might be facing 10 years

 

[Bevo 13605]

36 minutes ago, MillerEP said:

 

If you are Russian and sent to the front, what do you think is the best way to stay alive? I think I would stay as far away from the tanks as possible.

[956 Worldwide 34820]

33 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I fully admit he’s a fucking dumbass when it comes to military and geopolitical strategy, but Putin is scared of being knocked off/losing power.   He’s very scared, thanks to his KGB background and his reading of Russian/Soviet history.

Killing Belorussians with Russian nukes will spur on the anti-Lukashenko/Putin faction like nobody ‘s business, and  Putin needs him and Belarus. Belarusians are fine with ammo and vehicles being given to Russia, but the fact that Belarus refused to join Putin’s Special Military Operation means Lukashenko (or Putin) is at least reading the room and that Putin was unwilling to force Belarus to join in.   If fallout drifted into Belarus, Lukashenko would have to toss Putin under the bus (plenty of those folks probably remember Chernobyl). Putin does not have the forces to put down a rebellion there either,

Killing Russian soldiers (and sympathetic Ukrainians) with Russian nukes after we already keep seeing mutinies happening amongst Russian troops nearly every day over things like a lack of pay or body armor or first aid kits - that’s a fantastic way to get a repeat of 1917/1918.  Russian social media is already full of Russian soldiers bitching about going to the meat grinder   Toss in Russian soldiers getting nukes and yeah, Putin is done.

 

I do not believe that Putin will do something as blatant and undeniable as using a nuclear weapon. I think it was discussed, I think it was dismissed. It is not his style.  Putin is a KGB goon and not a soldier, not a hero, not a zealot. 
 

Putin is like a KGB goon in that he highly prefers plausible deniability and he always looks to leave a back door open for himself (the famous off ramp) and he has to be kicking himself for not doing so as far as this invasion goes. There is a pattern to his most outrageous behavior:

- Crimea: (“little green men” and conflicting narratives leave a path out and deniability)

- Donbas: Fiction of local independence movements that can be abandoned without harming Russian prestige if needed.

- MH-17, Salisbury, Navalny: Use of local proxies, use of wet work, all deniable, all shadowy

- Syria chemical weapons: Farm out the use of WMD to proxies

- Wagner/PMCs in Syria and Africa can also be denied or abandoned

Georgia and Ukraine are the outliers in their clear use of Russian military force.

I don’t think we’re out of the woods.  I do think that Putin has laid the narrative work for two catastrophic events: either detonation of a low-yield “dirty bomb” type device or an artificial catastrophe in Zaporizhia.  He will blame either on the Ukrainians and has already accused them of plotting to build a dirty bomb and of shelling their own power plant.  Doing this offers a number of benefits: he can stoke outrage at home, he can offer actors like China/India JUST enough daylight to not upset the cart while waiting for “the investigation,” and he can provoke terror in Ukraine and the West of what might happen next and use his disinformation amplifiers. And he can create a catastrophe for Ukraine that distracts from the war. Killing Russians or Belarusians would not be a drawback, to the contrary, it’s even a side benefit. 
 

Another note on Putin as a counter-intelligence goon.  His professional view is shaped by an understanding of conflict as more or less permanent, an unending series of tactical struggles of wits and brutality to keep your opponent on the wrong foot, or to steal something, or to fool them, or frighten them or manipulate them into doing something ill-advised for them or good for you. But the conflict will be always be there and no spook thinks in terms of defeating his opponent completely to bring a conflict to a decisive, victorious end.  Putin’s decision making and strategies reflect this inability to even conceive of a how this war or any war will successfully end.  His original plan appeared to have a vague conception, but it was very much an intelligence officer’s idea- a lightning strike that would scare Ukraine’s leadership followed by an installation of someone friendly. He did not even consider having to fight a real war against Ukraine and none of his subsequent decisions appear to be aimed at defeating the armed forces of Ukraine on the battlefield but rather at trying to use fear, terror, and dirty tricks to cause Ukraine to collapse. 

[MillerEP 30501]

 

[Shaddie 1652]

4 hours ago, bolverk said:

Not great; not terrible. Some cold comfort that they've only discussed it but haven't moved to act.

Russian Military Leaders Discussed Use of Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Officials Say
The conversations alarmed the Biden administration because they showed how frustrated Moscow had become over its battlefield setbacks in Ukraine.

WASHINGTON — Senior Russian military leaders recently had conversations to discuss when and how Moscow might use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, contributing to heightened concern in Washington and allied capitals, according to multiple senior American officials.

President Vladimir V. Putin was not a part of the conversations, which were held against the backdrop of Russia’s intensifying nuclear rhetoric and battlefield setbacks.

But the fact that senior Russian military leaders were even having the discussions alarmed the Biden administration because it showed how frustrated Russian generals were about their failures on the ground, and suggests that Mr. Putin’s veiled threats to use nuclear weapons might not just be words.

Still, American officials said they had seen no evidence that the Russians were moving nuclear weapons into place or taking other tactical measures to prepare for a strike.

The intelligence about the conversations was circulated inside the U.S. government in mid-October.

U.S. officials would not describe the scenarios the military leaders considered for use of a nuclear weapon. However, William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, has previously said that Mr. Putin’s “potential desperation” to extract a victory in Ukraine and setbacks in the war could lead Russia to use one.

John F. Kirby, a National Security Council official, declined to comment on “the particulars of this reporting.”

“We’ve been clear from the outset that Russia’s comments about the potential use of nuclear weapons are deeply concerning, and we take them seriously,” Mr. Kirby said. “We continue to monitor this as best we can, and we see no indications that Russia is making preparations for such use.”

cont'd:

  Reveal hidden contents

The Pentagon estimates that Russia has a stockpile of as many as 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons, which are designed to be used on battlefields to overwhelm conventional forces. No tactical nuclear weapon has ever been used in combat, but one could be deployed any number of ways, including by missile or artillery shell.

Tactical nuclear weapons carry lower yields and are meant to be used at shorter ranges than the warheads carried on intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Military experts say the use of a nuclear weapon — for the first time in more than 75 years — would fundamentally change the shape of war. Although the resulting destruction would depend on many factors, including the weapon’s size and the winds, even a small nuclear explosion could cause thousands of deaths and render parts of Ukraine uninhabitable.

Mr. Putin has sole authority over whether to use a tactical device and would make the decision to deploy one regardless of the views of his generals.

The new intelligence surfaced when Moscow was also promoting the baseless notion that Ukraine was planning to use a so-called dirty bomb — a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material. And it came amid a flurry of contacts between U.S. and other Western officials and their Russian counterparts, including two calls between Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and the Russian defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu.

While the risk of further escalation remains troublingly high, Biden administration officials and U.S. allies also say that the phone calls between Western and Russian counterparts late last month helped ease some of the nuclear tensions. A speech by Mr. Putin last Thursday in which he denied that Moscow was preparing to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine further lowered the temperature, according to some of the officials.

“We see no need for that,” Mr. Putin said in his speech. “There is no point in that, neither political, nor military.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February and suffered significant casualties, Mr. Putin himself has fanned fears that he might resort to a nuclear weapon.

A European official said the speech was seen among allies as part of Mr. Putin’s regular pattern of inflaming tensions, watching the reaction of the West and his own public, then taking steps to calm the situation.

Russia conducted an annual military exercise last week testing nuclear-capable missiles. Mr. Austin said U.S. officials did not believe the maneuvers were “some kind of cover activity” to use a tactical nuclear weapon against Ukraine.

In Washington, administration officials say they still do not think Mr. Putin has made plans to use a tactical nuclear weapon or even a dirty bomb.

“We have not seen anything to indicate that Putin has made a decision to use a dirty bomb,” Mr. Austin told reporters at the Pentagon last Thursday. He said that even talk of the use of nuclear weapons was “dangerous.”

But he said the administration was “certainly concerned about escalation,” as it has been since the war started.

“It would be the first time a nuclear weapon has been used in over 70 years,” he said. “If this happened, we have been clear from the very beginning that you would see a very significant response from the international community.”

Biden administration officials have steadfastly refused to publicly describe what that response would be, but the president has indicated he has no plans to retaliate with an American nuclear device.

“I’m the guy that makes the recommendation to my boss on what we should do and how we should do it, and so I’ll make sure that he has credible responses that are actually effective in terms of what we want to do,” Mr. Austin said, without elaborating.

For Mr. Putin, using a smaller-yield, tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine presents more complications than ordering the firing of a strategic weapon, like an ICBM. Moving a tactical nuclear weapon is not simply a matter of giving an order and having two people turn keys.

There would be practical steps that Russian commanders would be alerted to be ready to carry out, including how to mitigate any risk to Russian military personnel in the blast area.

“If there’s an order from the Kremlin, it can’t just magically happen,” Peter B. Zwack, a retired one-star Army general who was the American defense attaché in Moscow from 2012 to 2014, said in an interview last week.

From the beginning of the war, American intelligence agencies have been looking for signs that Mr. Putin is taking preparatory steps to use a nuclear weapon, such as undeclared nuclear exercises or strategic forces being put on alert.

But American officials said that the warning systems to detect such steps were imperfect, and that there was no guarantee that military or intelligence officials would be able to give the White House much advance warning. That is one reason the intelligence about the Russian discussions was viewed with such interest.

With the high-level nuclear discussions, the Russian military is weighing what might prompt Moscow’s use of a tactical weapon. And any additional intense discussions among senior leaders about the use of a nuclear weapon is something American officials have been profoundly concerned about — especially if Russia’s army in the south of Ukraine were to collapse.

Tensions over nuclear weapon use have been rising steadily since Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive in early September.

Since then, Mr. Putin has taken steps to escalate the conflict — calling for a mobilization, annexing territory in Ukraine, getting more directly involved in war planning, and approving a campaign to attack and degrade the electrical power grid of Ukraine with cruise missiles and Iranian drones.

Those steps have not changed Russia’s fortunes, and Ukrainian forces continue to move forward on fronts in the northeast and the south.

Still, some of those escalatory moves, like bringing in more troops, could have more impact on the battlefield by early next year.

Officials expect intense fighting to continue into next month, but muddier conditions and colder weather in the next few weeks could force a pause into earlier next year.

 

While the news isn’t surprising my take of this US intelligence released this for a reason.

“We know everyone of you assholes and we know who to kill if any of you approve this”. We know where you live and where your family lives. We also know if you have restrained yourself and can be worked with when Putin crumbles. Your choice assholes.

[atomheartbevo 89859]

 

[atomheartbevo 89859]

 

[MillerEP 30501]

 

[MillerEP 30501]

\

[Shaddie 1652]

45 minutes ago, MillerEP said:

^Telegram is saying she might be facing 10 years

 

I’m a peace loving person. 
You sink my boat and things go sideways.

1st I pull every finger nail and toe nail you have. Then I water board you. Then I put 110v to your genitalia for an hour. I then empty a clip into your legs. 
I then decide to get mean after that.  

[Rimbo 26165]

2 hours ago, Bevo said:

Don't know if this goes here or on Can You Help Me With This, but on the same page as your tweet: Miss Argentina and Miss Puerto Rico reveal they secretly got married

 

 

 

@TODAYshow

4 hours ago

Miss Argentina and Miss Puerto Rico reveal they secretly got married

Miss Argentina 2020, Mariana Varela, 26, and Miss Puerto Rico 2020, Fabiola Valentin, 22, wrote on Instagram that they got married on Oct. 28 after having kept their relationship out of the public eye.

Spoiler

 

[Scheiss Meister 8414]

1 hour ago, MillerEP said:

\

Pour encourager les autres.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Scheiss Meister
Better than English in this case.

[Eskimohorn 5644]

Dude, if you think I'm gonna give up my Russian caviar just because Russia is a murderous, ruthless regime, committing war crimes left and right in an unjustified genocidal war....well, you don't know how shallow I really am, good sir!

If they use nukes, I’ll cut my caviar purchases altogether and 1/2 of my vodka.

[MillerEP 30501]

 

[Superhero 8858]

7 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

He has a point.

Oh, and fuck Russia. Russians living abroad need to be rounded up and deported back to Russia. Sort it out who we'll let into the rest of civil society.

 

 

And before I forget, fuck the Serbs as well. 

[atomheartbevo 89859]

Increase in dead Russians?

 

[MillerEP 30501]

If Ukraine's numbers are to be believed RuZZia lost 5000 in 8 days

[Brisketexan 105465]

[/url] If Ukraine's numbers are to be believed RuZZia lost 5000 in 8 days

At an average weight of 170 lbs (that’s probably light), that’s around 425 TONS of processed russian meat produced by the UKA. Well done.

[Post Oak 20304]

This just popped up.  Haven't had a chance to watch it yet but because it's PBS Frontline I'd bet it's pretty good. You can w watch the entire episode here

 

 

 

[Nivek 17000]

Increase in dead Russians?
 

What is her plan going to be?

[Superhero 8858]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

At an average weight of 170 lbs (that’s probably light), that’s around 425 TONS of processed russian meat produced by the UKA. Well done.

[atomheartbevo 89859]

1 hour ago, Nivek said:

What is her plan going to be?

RussiansLookingForAmericanHusbands.com ?

[Gatorubet 30325]

1 hour ago, Nivek said:

What is her plan going to be?

On a related note, I’m having some communication problems online; the other person doesn’t understand me.

Can anyone tell me how to say “Sharpie” in Russian?

[InkaUtexas 26192]

2 hours ago, Post Oak said:

This just popped up.  Haven't had a chance to watch it yet but because it's PBS Frontline I'd bet it's pretty good. You can w watch the entire episode here

 

 

 

Good watch. Thank you for posting. 

4 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

On a related note, I’m having some communication problems online; the other person doesn’t understand me.

Can anyone tell me how to say “Sharpie” in Russian?

Markainbuttski. 

[atomheartbevo 89859]

 

[InkaUtexas 26192]

JFC, the more we see the dumber Russia looks. 

 

[F250 28829]

3 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Increase in dead Russians?

 

That should come with one of these.

 

[InkaUtexas 26192]

Armies run on their stomachs. Seems like the Ukrainians figured this out. Making a porridge as soon as it gets a bit colder. 

Also, noticed a few things. Common areas, including storage are clean and organized. Troops have their uniforms on properly. Important things @RDCanecutter  and @atomheartbevo. Funny how much the Eastern Europeans learned working with the US and NATO in Afghanistan. Best mess I ever saw belonged to the Macedonians. Dudes has good, healthy food. It was orderly and well managed. And they would buy from local markets at fair prices.

The Brits in Helmand relied on contractors and had some issues with Scurvy. I know I am going to be negged bombed for saying this, but man cannot live on Whataburger alone.    

 

[InkaUtexas 26192]

My order from Saint Javelin arrived. Quite happy. Canadian patch is for my Canuck buddy. Keeping the damn dog for sure. 

 

[RPM 26368]

4 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

Can anyone tell me how to say “Sharpie” in Russian?

Potato

[KYHorn 17212]

11 hours ago, MillerEP said:

 

 

11 hours ago, MillerEP said:

\

You can start to see how approaching 800 per day is possible reading accounts like these.

 

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4979]

6 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

On a related note, I’m having some communication problems online; the other person doesn’t understand me.

Can anyone tell me how to say “Sharpie” in Russian?

It kinda ruins the mood when you get a picture of a puppy shoved up her butthole?

[Captainant 27862]

5 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

The Brits in Helmand relied on contractors and had some issues with Scurvy. I know I am going to be negged bombed for saying this, but man cannot live on Whataburger alone.  

They've got OJ at Whataburger don't they? Truly, it has all that a man could ever need

[Schulz2.0 29020]

 

[Schulz2.0 29020]

 

[Pescado_Rojo 19443]

9 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

RussiansLookingForAmericanHusbands.com ?