Русский корабль - иди нахуй

[NoName 16253]

5 minutes ago, twosheds said:

What if a stray tactical nuke accidentally hits the CR?

 

[Bevo 13465]

7 minutes ago, Parliament said:

Do you want the survivors as refugees over here?

[DDD Dad 14133]

CR smack talk in the DT not going away. 
 

can we stay on topic please?  K thx bye 

Edited March 18, 2022 by DDD Dad

[Cheeseweasel 26437]

[BabaYaga 15189]

Things are starting to turn more dire for Z and his forces.  Desperate times....

[J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. 1084]

8 hours ago, dimyh said:

Pretty gnarly clip of another Zed getting blown to hell. Literally bodies in trees if there were any trees nearby.

 

Holy shit!  How long was that guy that hits the ground at the end in the air?

[Longhornlove 4765]

1 minute ago, J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. said:

Holy shit!  How long was that guy that hits the ground at the end in the air?

I think he came from somewhere else honestly. Dickson can't punt and keep a football in the air that long. There is a flash at the top of the screen just before that body lands.

[Parliament 14062]

10 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Things are starting to turn more dire for Z and his forces.  Desperate times....

So Ukraine is committing war crimes too?  Not cool, Guys.  Not cool at all.

[DDD Dad 14133]

10 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Thought you had me on ignore. 

[J.R. 150]

Generally I think the enemy is still in the middle of making a big mistake and NATO is wisely not doing anything to interrupt him. I am not intending to minimize the suffering, but the suffering would likely be expanded if we sought to interrupt this mistake. 

[Constant 6685]

Spoiler

 

Spoiler contains images of dead Russians. 

[Longhornlove 4765]

We need Arya

[J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. 1084]

5 minutes ago, Longhornlove said:

I think he came from somewhere else honestly. Dickson can't punt and keep a football in the air that long. There is a flash at the top of the screen just before that body lands.

That's what people at the Youtube link are saying:  that there was another tank to the right that was blown up in that flash.  Damn, that's nasty.

[Hefeweizen 5305]

Yeah I’m on the Fuck Russians, not just Putin train now. 

[Parliament 14062]

3 minutes ago, J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. said:

 Damn, that's nasty.

Well don't fuck around and you won't find out.

I posted this in the other board.  Spring planting is a month off yet.  I think Ukraine is gonna plant crops on time.  Just gotta lift the planter over every dead conscript.

[Hefeweizen 5305]

No CR but some weird vibes here.

[956 Worldwide 34176]

4 minutes ago, Hefeweizen said:

Yeah I’m on the Fuck Russians, not just Putin train now. 

This is most likely a piece of equipment that had been decorated for a “Great Patriotic War” parade or display and hadn’t been redone before getting put in the field. The orange and black Z ribbons (St. George ribbon) are also linked to the war. 
 

It’s hard to tell people who haven’t lived it how bizarre and fixated the Great Patriotic War mythos is to Russian society. Russia’s state religion isn’t Orthodoxy, it’s a cult of the war.  And I’m using the GPW phrase carefully. In Russian historiography World War II as started in 1939 and involving theaters in Asia, Africa, and Western Europe is distinct from the GPW and there is no reflection on how things they did between 1939-1941 led to the Nazi attack on the USSR. 

[Brisketexan 104181]

16 minutes ago, Hefeweizen said:

Yeah I’m on the Fuck Russians, not just Putin train now. 

 

So, you know......fuck Russia, and fuck Russians.

Sorry about the "good Russians who are decent folks and don't want this."  The world is just safer with a wall built around your shithole of a psychostate, and we move on down the road.

[You don't know me 1161]

9 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

This is most likely a piece of equipment that had been decorated for a “Great Patriotic War” parade or display and hadn’t been redone before getting put in the field. The orange and black Z ribbons (St. George ribbon) are also linked to the war. 
 

It’s hard to tell people who haven’t lived it how bizarre and fixated the Great Patriotic War mythos is to Russian society. Russia’s state religion isn’t Orthodoxy, it’s a cult of the war.  And I’m using the GPW phrase carefully. In Russian historiography World War II as started in 1939 and involving theaters in Asia, Africa, and Western Europe is distinct from the GPW and there is no reflection on how things they did between 1939-1941 led to the Nazi attack on the USSR. 

Um...  I hate to admit it, but we ain't much different, are we?

[SimonBolivar 10855]

8 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

This is most likely a piece of equipment that had been decorated for a “Great Patriotic War” parade or display and hadn’t been redone before getting put in the field. The orange and black Z ribbons (St. George ribbon) are also linked to the war. 
 

It’s hard to tell people who haven’t lived it how bizarre and fixated the Great Patriotic War mythos is to Russian society. Russia’s state religion isn’t Orthodoxy, it’s a cult of the war.  And I’m using the GPW phrase carefully. In Russian historiography World War II as started in 1939 and involving theaters in Asia, Africa, and Western Europe is distinct from the GPW and there is no reflection on how things they did between 1939-1941 led to the Nazi attack on the USSR. 

I was just about to comment about your second point. Hard for us to imagine painting "On to Berlin" or "On to Tokyo" on our new equipment. As much as we idolize the war, it just isn't comparable to how they felt/feel about it. Something to think about for sure.

[SimonBolivar 10855]

10 minutes ago, You don't know me said:

Um...  I hate to admit it, but we ain't much different, are we?

I'd say its the opposite. To the US the war is a patriotic event that promoted our grandparents and Great grandparents to mythological status. Our current feeling towards Germany, Italy, Hungry, Japan, etc have a complete disconnect from the war. We would never put "On to Berlin" on our new equipment for a parade because it was an event for Zeros and Spitfires and not for Apaches and Javelins. We enjoy talking about it but it has no connection to the now like it seems to have in Russia.

 

It's cultural too. When you had the Romney vs Obama debate it seemed preposterous to average Americans when Romney was discussing the Russians because we had already "beaten" them just as we had the British, the Mexicans, the Confederates, Germans, and everyone else. This is a trend in our historical perspective that other and older states/cultures may not share. That's the American connection to history. Positivism and moving forward.

Edited March 18, 2022 by SimonBolivar

[JesusSweatDuck 17780]

52 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

CR smack talk in the DT not going away. 
 

can we stay on topic please?  K thx bye 

That's offensive, you might want to spoiler that. 🙂 

[ShaggyBevo RIP 3867]

Nestle hasn't pulled out of the Russian market. Here are the products to boycott-

[Nivek 16736]

There's a lot to the idea that Russia is basically who they (and the Soviet Union) always were, and it's continued up to this day.  
 
They can make some outstanding weapons systems, such as their air defense systems, but then being the typical Russians with the typical Soviet mindset, they end up with too many types of systems that are very specialized, and they can't support them on their budget and/or they simply can't maintain that many different systems in the field (away from their internal rail network/etc.).
Because the Soviet mindset still continues to this day, they suffer for it in situations like Ukraine (although Syria should have exposed it).  Hell, they spend $10 billion less than India on their military (they are spending something around $62 billion a year), and a lot of folks mention that the Russian Air Force (new aircraft/aircraft modernization) as well as their export programs received an outsized-portion of that.
Hell, looking at the websites that track destroyed Russian equipment, it's insane how many variants of just tanks they field, let alone the various APCs.  It seems like there's a dozen types of T-72, and then there's the T-80, which is based on the T-64 from the 1960s, but with T-72 features.
Reminds me of the Mig-25 Foxbat when I was  a kid in the 1980s - some friends and I were obsessed with aircraft, and the Mig-25 was kind of the King of the Hill because of its performance, but at the same time, it was a shit aircraft that sucked up a lot of maintenance, and just couldn't be flown very much because it wore out parts (I think the engines were rated to like 150 hours or something stupid).   Sure, it could get to altitude fast, could fly at a high-altitude, but the aircraft it was designed to intercept (B-70) was canceled 3 years before the Mig-25 went into production, and missiles were coming online that were fast as hell with good intercept capabilities and could be fired from aircraft with much lower speeds/service ceiling.  Soviets still built almost 1,200 of them.  Would you rather have 1,200 hard-to-maintain aircraft with short engine lives and very narrow missions, or have 1,200 F-15s that would be using missiles that could do the very things the Mig-25s were designed to do, but that could also be used for a variety of roles and didn't need new engines after 150 hours?
It feels like the Russians are deploying such a large variety of equipment in Ukraine, it's like how the hell do they maintain the logistics for all of them?  
 

Thanks. It does seem that they are interested in mostly funding a few new flashy items as the appearance of a threat rather than a pragmatic investment.

[Cheeseweasel 26437]

9 minutes ago, You don't know me said:

Um...  I hate to admit it, but we ain't much different, are we?

[ABSR 5281]

13 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

That is not what Mearsheimer is saying. He has pointed out that this war has been brewing for eight years (Following Russia's unilateral aggression to invade a sovereign nation and to annex their territory), we've egged Ukraine on all along (By providing training and military support to help them defend themselves again further future invasions from the Russian/Putin aggressors) with false promises, Ukraine has acted recklessly  (To defend themselves and the life they wish to have for themselves and the future they wish to have for their country and their childred) in aggravating the gorilla next door...His contention is there was a time when Ukraine could have accepted its place in the world (As a vassal state to Russia such as Belarus currently) as a buffer state and it would not have been that bad (See the Donbas and Luhansk regions which were run by virtual war lords stealing everything and terrorizing the population). At the heart of all of this thought is Thucydides: Strong nations do what they will, weak nations suffer what they must (So as the US is the strongest nation in the world obviously we should do whatever we want...wait he means Russia/Putin can and we should stand aside and let it happen). Ukraine is a relatively weak nation but one of their bargaining chips is neutrality (Capitulation and acceptance of being a vassal state). Instead of (living on their knees) using it they listened to America's crack foreign policy team (almost all of y'all agree about our other recent disasters -- why is this different?) and now we are teetering on the brink of (Destroying Putin and the new Russian imperialist empire) nuclear holocaust over a country of no strategic import to us.

Great job everybody well done.

He also points out that is useful when thinking of global strategy to be able to put yourselves in the shoes of the enemy. When Khruschev tried to put missiles in Cuba, we almost went to nuclear war. Imagine if China or Russia brokered some deal to put their military on the ground in Mexico or Canada. That is what NATO Ukraine is to Russia. To us, Chinese Naval Station Veracruz; joint operating base Monterrey. 

We have a Monroe Doctrine. Russia has something similar and Ukraine is the centerpiece of it. 

Mearsheimer acknowledges that Putin is a thug who in his heart of hearts would love a "Greater Russia" or Soviet Union remix but he believes, as I do, that Putin is smart enough to know that he simply cannot pull that off. Not today, not tomorrow, not in any of our lifetimes. How the fuck is he going to manage Ukraine as a client state with his army in shambles and then launch fresh invasions on three Baltic states who hate him maybe even more than the proudest Ukrainians thereby triggering a NATO heymaker? 

It is just not possible. He doesn't have the juice. 

Fixed the first part, but just quit as the Russian dick sucking and capitulation to tyranny discussion just went on and on.

[immamac 42327]

10 minutes ago, You don't know me said:

Um...  I hate to admit it, but we ain't much different, are we?

To be fair most of the conflicts we join are on the side of freedom and democracy. 

Iraqi freedom is pretty fucking questionable after the first invasion and reeks of "to the victor go the spoils" but in reality we used the US military to make the private sector an untold amount of money while burning billions on occupation that was a complete failure post regime change. It's as close as we will ever get to what Russia is doing now and we were _successful_ even if Russia succeeds in Ukraine it will be a long terrible decision that will be a stain on their history forever. 

[Cheeseweasel 26437]

1 minute ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

Nestle hasn't pulled out of the Russian market. Here are the products to boycott-

Hot pockets? 

I can only do so much.

[956 Worldwide 34176]

5 minutes ago, You don't know me said:

Um...  I hate to admit it, but we ain't much different, are we?

It’s a seriously different vibe, trust me. The genuine suffering and heroism of millions of Soviet citizens is simply a blank canvas to project the grievances and neuroses of humiliated Russians, who are the nation that won the war and then lost the peace that came later. It’s a very different thing than even U.S. sepia toned feelings about the “Good War” or “Greatest Generation.”  
 

It is a true humiliation that a Russia-led USSR first beat a vastly wealthier and more prosperous Germany that came to the USSR to steal and murder, but 70 years later the same amorphous blob of “fascists” are again vastly wealthier and happier. The cult of the war in Russia involves a lot of self-loathing and resentment that you don’t get at the Memorial Day parade. 
 

Another note- the Russians don’t talk about fighting the Germans or Italians or any other nation. They fought “fascists.” The term is both a holdover from Communism and a useful device to deploy that enables any enemy past or future to step into the eternal enemy role. 

[Nivek 16736]

Putin is so scared of COVID or assassination attempts that he sits at ridiculously long tables away from his military deputies and his oligarch buddies or spreads them out in massive rooms, and he makes sure Russia makes her loan payments even though his economy is about to run on fumes, and you think he’s willing to risk the West directly attacking him, or risk being cut off by China economically?
Because China will bail on his ass in a heartbeat.  They have a long game planned out that definitely does not involved Russia dropping nukes on its neighbor because it’s losing a three-day war that Putin ginned up.  China knows she slides into isolation territory with Russia if she props up Russia after Putin orders a nuke attack, and Putin is already taking Russia into North Korea territory   
Somebody made the comparison of using nukes and taking hostages.  Both work as long as the other side(s) don’t think you’ll use them or that you won’t start killing hostages.  Start using nukes or killing hostages, and the other side is done negotiating and their intent is to end you as quickly as possible.  

We are really bad at understanding our adversaries. We thought average Russians wouldn’t take a dump without a plan, and how China is playing chess 10 moves in advance. https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2013/07/18/14/56/wire-163985_960_720.jpg

[choripan 790]

17 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Hot pockets? 

I can only do so much.

Cook one and I bet you the war will be over before it cools off. NBD really.

[Bevo 13465]

2 minutes ago, Nivek said:

We are really bad at understanding our adversaries. We thought average Russians wouldn’t take a dump without a plan, and how China is playing chess 10 moves in advance. https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2013/07/18/14/56/wire-163985_960_720.jpg

Well, we don't even try. There has been no discussion about what led up to the war. And there has been no discussion of what Putin's next step will be. At best we talk about the US and US politicians but that is a huge mistake making us the center of everything. It isn't political to talk about how Putin will react and his reaction is to the West anyway, not just the US.

[Cheeseweasel 26437]

2 minutes ago, choripan said:

Cook one and I bet you the war will be over before it cools off. NBD really.

Hot pockets are simultaneously molten lava and frozen at the same time. Science can't explain it.

[MoJames 8240]

[Fico 1731]

49 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

This is most likely a piece of equipment that had been decorated for a “Great Patriotic War” parade or display and hadn’t been redone before getting put in the field. The orange and black Z ribbons (St. George ribbon) are also linked to the war. 
 

It’s hard to tell people who haven’t lived it how bizarre and fixated the Great Patriotic War mythos is to Russian society. Russia’s state religion isn’t Orthodoxy, it’s a cult of the war.  And I’m using the GPW phrase carefully. In Russian historiography World War II as started in 1939 and involving theaters in Asia, Africa, and Western Europe is distinct from the GPW and there is no reflection on how things they did between 1939-1941 led to the Nazi attack on the USSR. 

Like how they just built a new church for the army white floors constructed of melted down panzers. And no, I'm not making this up. 

[956 Worldwide 34176]

Today Putin told Schultz that the Ukrainians are trying to delay peace negotiations and they keep coming up with unreasonable demands.  Translating this from Kremlin speak, that means Russians are delaying negotiations and cooking up unreasonable demands. 
 

https://iz.ru/1307121/2022-03-18/putin-zaiavil-sholtcu-o-popytkakh-ukrainy-zatianut-peregovory?fbclid=IwAR2nihINyWlQFprnq6gy43k9rDtPFR-SkavTAngZJbwzs-2zkC8cKpk1e0s

 

 

[Gatorubet 29915]

1 hour ago, twosheds said:

Good point. Maybe guarantee safe passage to texags or tigerdroppings

Then kill them all.  God will know his own.

[Scary Stranger 1711]

33 minutes ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

Nestle hasn't pulled out of the Russian market. Here are the products to boycott-

Apparently I have been boycotting them without even knowing it. 

[immamac 42327]

23 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s a seriously different vibe, trust me. The genuine suffering and heroism of millions of Soviet citizens is simply a blank canvas to project the grievances and neuroses of humiliated Russians, who are the nation that won the war and then lost the peace that came later. It’s a very different thing than even U.S. sepia toned feelings about the “Good War” or “Greatest Generation.”  
 

It is a true humiliation that a Russia-led USSR first beat a vastly wealthier and more prosperous Germany that came to the USSR to steal and murder, but 70 years later the same amorphous blob of “fascists” are again vastly wealthier and happier. The cult of the war in Russia involves a lot of self-loathing and resentment that you don’t get at the Memorial Day parade. 
 

Another note- the Russians don’t talk about fighting the Germans or Italians or any other nation. They fought “fascists.” The term is both a holdover from Communism and a useful device to deploy that enables any enemy past or future to step into the eternal enemy role. 

It's really not dude, the leaders who have come into power just have different ideals ideologically and we align with the "good guys" more than not. The winners also get to write/dictate history. It feels good to be the good guy. 

If we pulled a Russia in Iraq how are we any different? We massively succeeded followed by a really stupid and extended insurgency - we staged a false flag, spied on them did everything wrong there and somehow we are just gonna pretend that we are somehow "different" than Russia? The entire global community condemned us for it and we did it anyway (with a few allies). The only difference is the results. Russia lost (there is no winning from where they are) and history will not be kind to them. We won and history is neutral at best to us. 

I'm not defending Saddam and his shit ass regime who was committing all kinds of atrocities and destabilizing the region, but the parallels are there. We of course did far less intentional killing of civilians and their infra, but it sure as fuck happened.

Stop glorifying this shit or putting it on some weird fascination with national identity. We are all humans and the animalistic side of humans crave war, its up to the cognitive humans to prevent it. 

[TwiceHorn 30966]

11 hours ago, Eastwood said:

Russia should have realized that they should treat their former satellites better, lest they run to a better opportunity. Of course it is advantageous to us for Ukraine to be EU/NATO. We offered a better deal. It was Russia's job to offer an even better one. They didn't. Same with North Korea. The Chinese offers the dictatorship what they want, so they stay under Chinese influence. It is a different story with Taiwan. The US offers the better deal. That's foreign policy in a nutshell. Convince other countries that they are better off dealing with you than the other superpowers. And what this whole ordeal has shown that Russia is a superpower in nuclear arsenal only. They are an economic, diplomatic, and militaristic midget. The world has seen it and even if Ukraine eventually falls, no one, absolutely no one, outside of dictators that we don't tolerate will think that they will get the better deal between Russia and the US.

Yeah, in the Soviet era, they could at least offer the "socialist dream" of a communal society, as well as weapons and money.  But now that Russia offers nothing but despotism and kleptocracy, it's just weapons and money, and oil.

Vietnam, Cuba, and African countries were and are I think susceptible to Soviet and Chinese "influence," because they "like(d)," or could sell to the populace, the idea of a socialist/communist poltiical system, and that made them a "better deal."

As that Kotkin article argues, Russia has always thought of itself too highly in terms of being a world power.  It's now being shown that they have almost nothing to offer a satellite or vassal state.

Edited March 18, 2022 by TwiceHorn

[MoJames 8240]

3 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Today Putin told Schultz that the Ukrainians are trying to delay peace negotiations and they keep coming up with unreasonable demands.  Translating this from Kremlin speak, that means Russians are delaying negotiations and cooking up unreasonable demands. 
 

https://iz.ru/1307121/2022-03-18/putin-zaiavil-sholtcu-o-popytkakh-ukrainy-zatianut-peregovory?fbclid=IwAR2nihINyWlQFprnq6gy43k9rDtPFR-SkavTAngZJbwzs-2zkC8cKpk1e0s

 

 

Have anything other than a .ru link?

[conVINCEd 21468]

Just now, Scary Stranger said:

Apparently I have been boycotting them without even knowing it. 

I’ll have to get the wife to buy a different coffee creamer, but that’s the only thing on the list that is regularly consumed in the conVINCEd household. 

[956 Worldwide 34176]

3 minutes ago, MoJames said:

Have anything other than a .ru link?

https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-tells-scholz-that-kyiv-is-stalling-peace-talks-with-moscow-2022-03-18/

[956 Worldwide 34176]

6 minutes ago, immamac said:

It's really not dude, the leaders who have come into power just have different ideals ideologically and we align with the "good guys" more than not. The winners also get to write/dictate history. It feels good to be the good guy. 

If we pulled a Russia in Iraq how are we any different? We massively succeeded followed by a really stupid and extended insurgency - we staged a false flag, spied on them did everything wrong there and somehow we are just gonna pretend that we are somehow "different" than Russia? The entire global community condemned us for it and we did it anyway (with a few allies). The only difference is the results. Russia lost (there is no winning from where they are) and history will not be kind to them. We won and history is neutral at best to us. 

I'm not defending Saddam and his shit ass regime who was committing all kinds of atrocities and destabilizing the region, but the parallels are there. We of course did far less intentional killing of civilians and their infra, but it sure as fuck happened.

Stop glorifying this shit or putting it on some weird fascination with national identity. We are all humans and the animalistic side of humans crave war, its up to the cognitive humans to prevent it. 

I think you were telling everyone on this very thread that the invasion wasn’t gonna happen and U.S. intelligence was lying until the day it kicked off, so sorry for not buying any “America and Russia are same-same” trash even if Iraq was a stain on our conscience.  You’re also not someone I need to hear from on Russia and how Russian politics and society works

[rpspeed 1350]

Looks like Putin left his bunker.

LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the invasion of Ukraine before a packed soccer stadium on Friday but coverage of his speech on state television was unexpectedly interrupted by what the Kremlin said was a technical problem with a server.

https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-hails-russias-special-operation-ukraine-thousands-packed-stadium-2022-03-18/

[Brisketexan 104181]

7 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, in the Soviet era, they could at least offer the "socialist dream" of a communal society, as well as weapons and money.  But now that Russia offers nothing but despotism and kleptocracy, it's just weapons and money, and oil.

As that Kotkin article argues, Russia has always thought of itself too highly in terms of being a world power.

Excellent post and points.

For a brief window of history, Russia at least had the nominal "thing to offer" of "we're the headquarters of the 'building a communist workers' paradise' movement."  Once that went away......they have nothing.

It's a giant landmass.....most of which is functionally unlivable.  They've historically produced some great performance art.  And.....we're done.  That's what Russia has to offer.  That's a tough sales pitch.  "Align with us, we have Siberia and a great ballet" doesn't close many deals.

[Pato del Muerto 52184]

55 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

I was just about to comment about your second point. Hard for us to imagine painting "On to Berlin" or "On to Tokyo" on our new equipment. As much as we idolize the war, it just isn't comparable to how they felt/feel about it. Something to think about for sure.

They paid a much more significant human cost than we did. The kind of cost that you have to continually justify for a long time afterward…and the kind you hide your role in bringing about. 

[BachelorTrek 2908]

2 minutes ago, rpspeed said:

Looks like Putin left his bunker.

LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the invasion of Ukraine before a packed soccer stadium on Friday but coverage of his speech on state television was unexpectedly interrupted by what the Kremlin said was a technical problem with a server.

https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-hails-russias-special-operation-ukraine-thousands-packed-stadium-2022-03-18/

Hacked by Anonymous in real-time, perhaps? That'd be funny if that's what comes out.  Lulz.

[conVINCEd 21468]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Excellent post and points.

For a brief window of history, Russia at least had the nominal "thing to offer" of "we're the headquarters of the 'building a communist workers' paradise' movement."  Once that went away......they have nothing.

It's a giant landmass.....most of which is functionally unlivable.  They've historically produced some great performance art.  And.....we're done.  That's what Russia has to offer.  That's a tough sales pitch.  "Align with us, we have Siberia and a great ballet" doesn't close many deals.

That guy who made the fancy eggs was pretty good as well.  

[MoJames 8240]

4 minutes ago, rpspeed said:

Looks like Putin left his bunker.

LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the invasion of Ukraine before a packed soccer stadium on Friday but coverage of his speech on state television was unexpectedly interrupted by what the Kremlin said was a technical problem with a server.

https://www.reuters.com/world/putin-hails-russias-special-operation-ukraine-thousands-packed-stadium-2022-03-18/

So yeah I was going to ask, it looked like he was trying to walk out all Vince McMahon style to the crowd, but then I assumed he was doing this in some bunker with a green screen?