Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Russia will gain eastern Ukraine territories and hold them, as it has Crimea

5 (45.5%)

Russia will temporarily gain eastern Ukraine territories before being forced out of them

2 (18.2%)

Efforts to confront the Russian forces and get them out of Ukraine will lead to Putin's escalating and attacking NATO countries directly with missiles or other destructive measures

0 (0%)

The NATO/World response will be so mild that Putin will go ahead and take the rest of Ukraine

3 (27.3%)

Today Ukraine, tomorrow Moldova and who knows where else

1 (9.1%)

Total Members Voted: 10

Voting closed: March 01, 2022, 01:18:43 PM

[LarryBnDC]

Graham is not telling Americans to assassinate anyone.

He was calling for the assassination of the leader of a sovereign nation. He is a US Senator so it can be interpreted by foreign nations as the policy of the US government and that is not a good message.

Suppose an American did try, fail and get captured?

Because you out paper on a guy and whoever closes first gets paid.

outside of the inner circle of yes men there are a bunch of oligarchs who made their billions pre Putin who Putin has no use for. The question is which one has the stones to make a move on the Don?.

[bodiddley]

Shouldn't forget that Trump blabbed classified info to Lavrov and the Russian ambassador, so that the best US Kremlin source had to be exfiltrated: US extracted top spy from inside Russia in 2017

Or that Trump conducted secret talks with Putin.
That Jared wanted to have a secret communication channel inside the Russian embassy.
That Trump praised Putin endlessly, even after Russia invaded Ukraine.

How can the Dems fail to capitalize on all the Trump support for Putin and Russia?

Not to mention that Trump tried to subvert and stop the peaceful transfer of power in the US, and incited a violent insurrection against the US Gov't.

How aren't these thing negatives?
How is Trump not in a holding cell or at least a courtroom?

[facilitatorn]

http://www.lawfareblog.com/ukrainian-and-russian-will-fight-early-war-assessment

[Holly Martins]

This was the basis of my no fly zone question posted this morning, Bo. 

That idiotic convoy can't even move, due to a bridge out.  With NATO air support, they would be finished. 

The reason I would still hesitate to go full hawk on this is that there are millions of people dependent on Russian grain in Africa.  And other global connections where many would go hungry or freeze, if a full blown war erupted across Eurasia.  So I hope these very destructive sanctions can work and Putin can't access those cash reserves to skate through.

The convoy is getting chewed up by drones, eastern block A-10 warthog equivalents, and the occasional javelin. The main defect it has as a convoy is that it cannot actually go anywhere, a key element of conveying stuff. Right now Ukraine has bigger fish to fry.

I am starting to better understand the Soviet Afghan debacle. 

[Holly Martins]

George Will, not my favorite, but he sure knows how to sling words...

(glitching quote marks replaced with parens)

J.D. Vance, groveling for Trump s benediction (Vance covets Ohios Republican Senate nomination), two weeks ago said: (I dont really care what happens to Ukraine.) Apparently upon discovering that Ohio has 43,000 Ukrainian Americans, Vance underwent a conviction transplant, saying, (Russia s assault on Ukraine is unquestionably a tragedy,) and emitting clouds of idolatry for Trump s supposedly Metternichian diplomacy regarding Putin... 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/04/power-of-trump-in-gop-is-waning/

[bambu.]

Piers Ackerman, writing in my Sunday Telegraph today says it true:

Vladimir Putin finds little resistance beyond Ukraine borders.

Ukrainians are paying a cruel price in blood and treasure to the murderous Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin as his missiles destroy their lives and property.

But the Western liberal democracies are also paying a massive price as any illusions that international safeguards against brutality can be effective are destroyed.

/cont'd

[bambu.]

/cont'd

Putin has told French President Emmanuel Macron Russia has no intention of halting the attacks, let alone withdrawing from the captured territory, and his goal is to seize the nation in its entirety to "de Nazify Ukraine to the end".

His fantasy is to recreate the imperial Russia of the tsars and with his annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk - the so-called breakaway republic's- and his capture of Georgia and Crimea, he is well on his way to fulfilling his dream.

The European Union has so far done little more than offer refuge to a million or so civilians who have fled the Russian bombardment.

/cont'd

[josh]

Some of you may not feel that the sanctions have done much. Putin would seem to disagree.

Putin's line at the end is like every bully or abuser ever. "If we keep hurting you, it's your own fault."

Also, with Putin having declared a no-fly zone over Ukraine, I take that as an invitation for NATO to do the same - though it may take a relief flight's being shot down or two to force NATO to act.

From CNN
Putin says sanctions introduced on Russia are equal to a "declaration of war"
From CNN's Mostafa Salem

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that the sanctions introduced on his country are "equivalent of a declaration of war."

Putin also said there are not planning on a state of emergency in Russia or enlisiting conscripts for the "operation" in Ukraine.

"We could have taken a different course of action," he said. "We could have helped the republics of Donbas at the contact line and reinforced them with the Russian army, but in this case, and I mean with the unwavering support from the west, we would have radicals on the other side coming endlessly... with support from the west."

"Our General Staff, the Ministry of Defense, went the other way; the first thing they did was to destroy the entire military infrastructure [of Ukraine], well, not all of it, but partially, mostly. Warehouses with weapons, ammunition, aviation, air defense systems," he said.

Putin said they have almost completed the destruction of the Ukrainian air defense systems.

CNN cannot independently confirm Putin's claims.

"Hence the demand to close the sky, but the implementation of this demand is associated with colossal and catastrophic consequences not only for Europe, but for the whole world," he said.

"The current [Ukrainian] leadership needs to understand that if they continue doing what they are doing, they put under question the future of Ukrainian statehood. And if that happens, it will be entirely on their conscience," Putin added. 

[bambu.]

/cont'd

Strong words in Brussels don't match high explosives in Kyiv, no matter how strongly former German defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, now President of the European Commission, codemns Putin's actions.

Europe has been left vulnerable because of the insane acceptance of the highly dubious claims of fanatical green climate extremists who successfully demanded that reliable coal-powered plants be closed.

Germany's former leader Angela "Mutti" Merkel, an unreconstructed East German - born socialist, went even further, decommissioning her nation's nuclear power plants. Bowing to green lunacy played into the hands of Russia which supplies the gas essential to power Western Europe.

/cont'd

[LarryBnDC]

/cont'd

Strong words in Brussels don't match high explosives in Kyiv, no matter how strongly former German defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, now President of the European Commission, codemns Putin's actions.

Europe has been left vulnerable because of the insane acceptance of the highly dubious claims of fanatical green climate extremists who successfully demanded that reliable coal-powered plants be closed.

Germany's former leader Angela "Mutti" Merkel, an unreconstructed East German - born socialist, went even further, decommissioning her nation's nuclear power plants. Bowing to green lunacy played into the hands of Russia which supplies the gas essential to power Western Europe.

/cont'd

Jeezus!

Nuke em all

[bambu.]

/cont'd

With their energy in Russia's hands and Ukraine falling (after a probably protracted and terribly bloody siege involving thousands of deaths on both sides), the European nations will accept Russian seizure of most of Ukraine's critical resources so they can continue to have airconditioning and hot showers without resorting to nasty coal power.

US President Joe Biden also gave away the US's strategic fuel advantage when he reversed Donald Trump's domestic energy certainty for foreign oil dependency, playing into Russia's hands.

#####

Well there you go.
The facts of how it all is, the mess it all is, in one true and brilliant piece of writing.

[josh]

The facts of how it all is

Heavily laden with opinion and few facts, but we don't expect that you can tell the difference.

[bambu.]

The facts of how it all is

Heavily laden with opinion and few facts, but we don't expect that you can tell the difference.

In my mind it's all factual, every bit of it.
What's not factual?

[facilitatorn]

The lamentations of coal hos are not factual.

[facilitatorn]

http://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/5/2084075/-Just-like-your-Fox-News-spewing-uncle-Putin-has-brainwashed-himself