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Posted
1 minute ago, Ghost of NMAS said:

Israel has been the largest recipient of American foreign aid,  when is Trump going to summon Netanyahu to the White House and force him to say thank you, and what do they have that we can extort in order to keep the aid flowing

I dunno. They're apparently giving us Gaza, the new Club Dead on the Med? 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Spankytoes said:

Did you say the same thing about Obama and Biden’s treatment/dealings with Netanyahu? I don’t remember 1/100th of the news coverage of saying the PM of Israel, who is Jewish, needs a “come to Jesus” meeting when trying to broker peace for Gaza. I guess a hot mic is forgivable instead of appalling when you like the guy saying it. Oh, and we threatened to withhold U.S. weapon shipments unless he played by our rules…which sounds kind of familiar here.

I sincerely hope you suffer, you Russian twat. 

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Posted
2 hours ago, DixonHur said:

But the US government were the buyers before.  Why would the Europeans buy from the US now, when they can just use locals like BAE, Rheinmetall, Thales and Leonardo?

The EU used to pay about $100B per year for US military equipment?

Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Trey3216 said:

That's fair.  Pile on.  I'm a firm believer America will get it (mostly) right (most of the time) and was looking for the outside straight.  I don't even think it's out of the realm that it could still happen to be honest.  But that's for another thread.   

 

We all want to make things work.  We all want things to happen.  We hate when they don't go as planned.  I hate that they got invaded in '14 and fuck all was done by the admin then.  Fuck all was done for the a while in '22.  You can't unfuck the babysitter as someone said.  

 

Can Ukraine still turn the tide?  I fucking hope so.  I hope it happens.  I hope we are part of it too.  

 

Is continuing to gut their country of enough men to make them viable going forward the answer either?  Something has to fucking give.  I sure as shit don't want it to be Russia getting its way...  

As of October, they still have 3.7M men from 25-60 available for conscription. Obviously nearly all the volunteers have signed up so there will be more and more tension between drafted conscripts and the recruiters/police. 

Edited by B00M
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Posted
1 hour ago, Spankytoes said:

Did you say the same thing about Obama and Biden’s treatment/dealings with Netanyahu? I don’t remember 1/100th of the news coverage of saying the PM of Israel, who is Jewish, needs a “come to Jesus” meeting when trying to broker peace for Gaza. I guess a hot mic is forgivable instead of appalling when you like the guy saying it. Oh, and we threatened to withhold U.S. weapon shipments unless he played by our rules…which sounds kind of familiar here.

A hot mic is definitely entirely forgivable compared to setting up an ally and world leader for an incomprehensible bollocking on live TV.

20 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

You're trying to think while also being a Republican.

There's as little room for you in Trump's GOP as there is for demon rats.  The only permissible thing is to turn off your mind and suck.

This is why old time Republicans fled Trump's GOP in droves and why CR is an "echo chamber."

Oh, I forgot to add, turn off your mind, suck, but do figure out some way to get in on the grift.

Posted
12 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

It’s funny to watch in real time people who were really, really wrong try and convince themselves that they weren’t really, really wrong.

At least when you boil a frog it eventually fucking dies

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Posted
2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Something is happening if we are seeing the Russians struggling to do things that they were doing even just a few months ago.  I’ve been out of the OSINT loop for the past few months, but I’ve seen the discussions about Russian advances bogging done and slowing to a crawl, or even being reversed, and their inability to kick Ukraine out of Kursk (even after bringing in thousands of North Korean troops).  This stuff is not wishful thinking. We are seeing it reflected in the maps, we are seeing it reflected in Russians using fucking donkeys to move equipment and golf carts to move men around.

I’ve been banging the “Russia may have culminated” drum, but I’m seeing the evidence everyday. 

I’d like to hear what is really going on on the ground - I agree that something has changed the dynamics but it is unclear what has changed and what caused the change. I’ve read a decent amount but nothing appears conclusive and assumptions about the apparent Russian weakness need more clarity to feel good about it.

Posted
7 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

At least when you boil a frog it eventually fucking dies

I don’t know - half the time they jump out of the fucking pot.

Posted
20 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

It’s funny to watch in real time people who were really, really wrong try and convince themselves that they weren’t really, really wrong.

Unfortunately experience shows that this is a common feature among most humans. There are more people who are like the Fonz and will never admit they were wrong. And this is especially true of leaders and type A personalities.

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Posted

image.thumb.png.c810ee54759f4b2172449b09d920206e.png
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/us/politics/lech-walesa-trump-letter.html?smid=url-share

Quote

 

Lech Walesa, the leader of Poland’s Solidarity movement, which helped end Moscow’s grip on Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War, joined with former Polish political prisoners on Monday to send an impassioned letter to President Trump voicing “horror and disgust” at his scolding of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine last week, saying it reminded them of their encounters with bullying Communist-era officials.

They wrote in Polish that they were “terrified by the fact that the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation reminded us of the one we remember well from interrogations by the Security Service and from courtrooms in Communist courts.”

“Prosecutors and judges, commissioned by the all-powerful communist political police, also explained to us that they held all the cards and we had none,” the letter said, a reference to President Trump’s Oval Office rebuke to Mr. Zelensky that “you don’t have the cards.”

Communist functionaries, the letter continued, “demanded that we stop our activities, arguing that thousands of innocent people were suffering because of us.” When President Zelensky insisted in the Oval Office on Friday that security guarantees were needed to make any peace deal with Russia last, Mr. Trump slapped him down, saying, “You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people.”

The letter — signed by Mr. Walesa, the 1980s leader of the Solidarity trade union, and more than 30 prominent former Polish political detainees — was posted on Mr. Walesa’s Facebook page, along with a sometimes imprecise English translation and an old photograph of him meeting with a grinning, tuxedo-clad Mr. Trump.

It expressed angry disbelief that Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance had berated Mr. Zelensky for not thanking them enough for helping Ukraine.

“Gratitude is due to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world,” Mr. Walesa, who served as Poland’s first elected president after the collapse of Communism, and other signatories said, adding, “We do not understand how the leader of a country that is a symbol of the free world cannot see this.”

While many European leaders were dismayed and deeply alarmed by Mr. Zelensky’s treatment in the Oval Office, they have avoided criticizing Mr. Trump in public, fearful of stirring his wrath and deepening his anger at Ukraine. Mr. Walesa’s letter brought Europe’s feelings into the open, particularly its alarm that the United States under Mr. Trump is veering away from standing up to dictatorial bullies to side with them.

The letter recalled the vital role that President Ronald Reagan had played in supporting Moscow’s opponents in the 1980s and bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union. “President Reagan was aware that in Soviet Russia and the countries it conquered, millions of enslaved people suffered, including thousands of political prisoners who paid for their sacrifice in defense of democratic values with freedom,” it said.

Pleading for the United States not to turn its back on decades of support for opponents of tyranny, the letter warned, “The history of the 20th century shows that every time the United States wanted to maintain distance from democratic values and its European allies, it ended up threatening itself.”

 

 

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Posted
38 minutes ago, Ghost of NMAS said:

I can’t wait to start importing all those sweet Russian cars, great industrial equipment, and wonderful consumer goods

A poster in this thread has experience importing a spouse.

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Posted
1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

You're trying to think while also being a Republican.

There's as little room for you in Trump's GOP as there is for demon rats.  The only permissible thing is to turn off your mind and suck.

This is why old time Republicans fled Trump's GOP in droves and why CR is an "echo chamber."


I’m probably more libertarian than old school Republican. But, I’m not talking about myself anyway - I’m talking more about friends in the Westlake, Memorial, Churchill, Highland Park group. The Dems in that group are very vocal but overall there are many more Republicans than Dems. And of the Republicans, there is a split regarding Ukraine. Remember it wasn’t too long ago that Pubs were very anti-Russia. Shit, Mitt Romney said that Russia was the biggest threat to the US and Obama laughed and said that this isn’t the 80s anymore and conservatives thought Romney was right and liberals thought Obama was right.
 

Now fast forward to today. Whether people want to admit it or not, most people’s views are easy to manipulate. Russia haters one day become Russia lovers the next. It is a mixed up world. Regardless, there are still open minded people out there at least among the highly educated.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Bevo said:


I’m probably more libertarian than old school Republican. But, I’m not talking about myself anyway - I’m talking more about friends in the Westlake, Memorial, Churchill, Highland Park group. The Dems in that group are very vocal but overall there are many more Republicans than Dems. And of the Republicans, there is a split regarding Ukraine. Remember it wasn’t too long ago that Pubs were very anti-Russia. Shit, Mitt Romney said that Russia was the biggest threat to the US and Obama laughed and said that this isn’t the 80s anymore and conservatives thought Romney was right and liberals thought Obama was right.
 

Now fast forward to today. Whether people want to admit it or not, most people’s views are easy to manipulate. Russia haters one day become Russia lovers the next. It is a mixed up world. Regardless, there are still open minded people out there at least among the highly educated.

Obama was right at the time, but he didn't have a crystal ball telling him America would elect a Russian asset ...twice.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Bevo said:


I’m probably more libertarian than old school Republican. But, I’m not talking about myself anyway - I’m talking more about friends in the Westlake, Memorial, Churchill, Highland Park group. The Dems in that group are very vocal but overall there are many more Republicans than Dems. And of the Republicans, there is a split regarding Ukraine. Remember it wasn’t too long ago that Pubs were very anti-Russia. Shit, Mitt Romney said that Russia was the biggest threat to the US and Obama laughed and said that this isn’t the 80s anymore and conservatives thought Romney was right and liberals thought Obama was right.
 

Now fast forward to today. Whether people want to admit it or not, most people’s views are easy to manipulate. Russia haters one day become Russia lovers the next. It is a mixed up world. Regardless, there are still open minded people out there at least among the highly educated.

Well, if not you, those people are struggling to be Republicans in Trump's GOP.  They are Mitt Romneys. They have no voice.

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Posted (edited)
13 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, if not you, those people are struggling to be Republicans in Trump's GOP.  They are Mitt Romneys. They have no voice.

NM - Thought better of it.

Lets try sticking to news.

Edited by Bevo
Posted
2 hours ago, Ghost of NMAS said:

I can’t wait to start importing all those sweet Russian cars, great industrial equipment, and wonderful consumer goods

Elon Musk can't wait to import more Russian aluminum and other resources he needs to make Teslas cheaper.

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Posted
2 hours ago, B00M said:

As of October, they still have 3.7M men from 25-60 available for conscription. Obviously nearly all the volunteers have signed up so there will be more and more tension between drafted conscripts and the recruiters/police. 

Do they truly have nearly 4 million available for conscription though?  We can't trust the Russian government (I'm not going to go all Peter Zeihan, but it's true, the Russians cover this shit up) with Russian demographics.  Many of those nearly million or so and their families (or maybe more) that fled conscription are probably still abroad. They are going to need a chunk of those men to keep things going at home in terms of the economy and supplying the military and keeping the trains going.

Russia is relying on North Korea to help with Kursk - you'd think they'd show some pride and project some power within their own borders and kick the Ukrainians out.  Could you imagine if the US invaded Mexico in 2022, and Mexico pushed nearly to San Antonio in 2024, and we are relying on I don't know, Nigerians or Brazilians or Filipinos to try and kick the Mexicans out?

Of course, I've heard theories that they don't want to deploy too many Russians in Kursk because they don't want to see high numbers of Russians surrendering inside of Russia.

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Posted
2 hours ago, Bevo said:

I’d like to hear what is really going on on the ground - I agree that something has changed the dynamics but it is unclear what has changed and what caused the change. I’ve read a decent amount but nothing appears conclusive and assumptions about the apparent Russian weakness need more clarity to feel good about it.

I think there's maybe two things going on in the short term:

  1. They aren't producing replacement equipment in the numbers they need (especially vehicles), hence the donkeys and golf carts. It's possible the sanctions combined with manufacturing equipment/factories breaking down from heavy use are doing a number on them. BUT it could be that they were never really able to ramp up production in the first place because they didn't have to, given that nobody was going to invade them, and they had thousands of vehicles sitting around doing nothing. A whole shitload of their military vehicles saw their production lines end years ago (even decades ago). There's no way they kept the equipment around to start those lines up again. That stuff would have been sold off for scrap, with the thought that they wouldn't need to mess with older equipment. And we know that if they have 10,000 armored vehicles in storage, a whole shitload of them were cannibalized for the black market, and many of the remaining ones would have become parts queens to keep the active-duty stuff going - no problem with this as long as they didn't' get into a war that wrecked their active-duty stuff.
  2. They don't have the means (fuel, ammo) to sustain anything heavy these days, at least across multiple areas. They may have refineries running full-tilt in Asia, but they may not be able to really get it into the last 20-30 miles of the war zones, which again is helped by donkeys and golf carts. Fuel tankers and cargo trucks make for huge and slow targets for Ukrainian drones. We've seen Ukrainian drones and missiles hitting ammo stockpiles - 10% of ammo in an area here, another 5% or 10% of ammo in an area over there, and next thing you know Russian commanders are fighting over who gets the remaining ammo.

There may also be a manpower shortage going on.  Tying into @B00M's comments about manpower - we are three years into a three-week military operation. Feels like they've had enough time to call up a lot more men and get them in the field.

It could also be that the drone situation now seems to be heavily favoring Ukraine, which could tie into #2 above (and could be the cause of #1).

 

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Posted
5 hours ago, Spankytoes said:

Did you say the same thing about Obama and Biden’s treatment/dealings with Netanyahu? I don’t remember 1/100th of the news coverage of saying the PM of Israel, who is Jewish, needs a “come to Jesus” meeting when trying to broker peace for Gaza. I guess a hot mic is forgivable instead of appalling when you like the guy saying it. Oh, and we threatened to withhold U.S. weapon shipments unless he played by our rules…which sounds kind of familiar here.

I know this is difficult for somebody as astoundingly stupid as you, but the difference is Biden was trying to stop genocide and Putin supports genocide and is supported by Trump.

This, I know, has escaped you.

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Posted
4 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:

It’s funny to watch in real time people who were really, really wrong try and convince themselves that they weren’t really, really wrong.

 

4 hours ago, Bevo said:

Unfortunately experience shows that this is a common feature among most humans. There are more people who are like the Fonz and will never admit they wreere wrong. And this is especially true of leaders and type A personalities.

image.thumb.png.0c33d2cfd4371167f72e4aa58958cd01.png

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Posted
5 hours ago, Bevo said:

I’d like to hear what is really going on on the ground - I agree that something has changed the dynamics but it is unclear what has changed and what caused the change. I’ve read a decent amount but nothing appears conclusive and assumptions about the apparent Russian weakness need more clarity to feel good about it.

One other thing, I'd like to know why they are holding off on the Kerch Bridge. They clearly have the range and the ability to fuck with traffic on it. Yes, it has plenty of air defenses, but that makes it even more attractive in a way, since those AD can't be easily replaced, and if Russia is paranoid about the bridge, just a single attempt will make  them take AD from elsewhere, leaving even more gaps.

Posted (edited)
44 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

One other thing, I'd like to know why they are holding off on the Kerch Bridge. They clearly have the range and the ability to fuck with traffic on it. Yes, it has plenty of air defenses, but that makes it even more attractive in a way, since those AD can't be easily replaced, and if Russia is paranoid about the bridge, just a single attempt will make  them take AD from elsewhere, leaving even more gaps.

In all honesty, I think it's a recognition they don't have the offensive capability (e.g., manpower or willingness to sacrifice lives) to take it back and/or deal with the ensuing evacuation along the southerly strategic route, connecting it along the Melitopol to Mariupol line. 

At this point, I think Zelenskyy would be willing to cede Crimea and Donbas, but that's, unfortunately, not what's in the cards.

Edited by bolverk
Posted (edited)
6 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Do they truly have nearly 4 million available for conscription though?  We can't trust the Russian government (I'm not going to go all Peter Zeihan, but it's true, the Russians cover this shit up) with Russian demographics.  Many of those nearly million or so and their families (or maybe more) that fled conscription are probably still abroad. They are going to need a chunk of those men to keep things going at home in terms of the economy and supplying the military and keeping the trains going.

Russia is relying on North Korea to help with Kursk - you'd think they'd show some pride and project some power within their own borders and kick the Ukrainians out.  Could you imagine if the US invaded Mexico in 2022, and Mexico pushed nearly to San Antonio in 2024, and we are relying on I don't know, Nigerians or Brazilians or Filipinos to try and kick the Mexicans out?

Of course, I've heard theories that they don't want to deploy too many Russians in Kursk because they don't want to see high numbers of Russians surrendering inside of Russia.


Obviously I can’t confirm. I was looking into that JD Vance claim that Ukraine was throwing people into vans and taking them to training centers. It seems there is some truth to that because there are now, understandably, so few volunteers. Ukraine changed their laws last year requiring all men of age to update their information at recruiting centers or using the government app. They reportedly had 3.7M in that age range. It’s probably reasonable to assume that number is somewhat higher than reality. Since there are now so few volunteers, recruiters are having to go to weddings and night clubs and other public events to find men that have been drafted but aren’t reporting. Any country in Ukraine’s position would be doing this. 

Fuck Vance and Trump for saying that to the media. Either due to a change of strategy or coincidental intel, you immediately see Russia use their very rare iskander ballistic missiles to target training facilities…

Edited by B00M
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