Russia, US, Ukraine, and the Future

**Bande Nere** · April 14, 2022, 04:56 PM

Everything is going according to plan.

**Asmodeus** · April 14, 2022, 05:03 PM

One really does not understand all this fuss about the new "anti-nazi submarine" that has just joined the Black Sea fleet, it got to be all part of the plan of Uncle Poo. we all know that Ivan is still a force to be reckoned with , not a bunch of outlaws and bandits.. and if you laugh or say different they will be quite miffed (and send in their elites to rape. torutre and kill anyone they can find, unarmed and running away the better).
God bless Ukraine.

**nhytgbvfeco2** · April 14, 2022, 05:35 PM

Much like losing and withdrawing from the north, the deaths of some 40 generals, the complete failure to bypass Mykolaiv and the fact that the Russians got bombed in the exact same spot in the Kherson airport 15(!) times and continue to deploy there, the sinking of the Moscow was also, always, part of The Plan™.
Imagine losing your flagship fighting a nation with essentially no navy.

**Morticia Iunia Bruti** · April 14, 2022, 06:00 PM

Moskwa sunk in stormy sea...

Hmm 5-10 knots Surface winds, Pressure 1021 milibar, Wave heights 0,5-1,5 Meters

https://www.passageweather.com

A quiet day in the Black Sea

**Ludicus** · April 14, 2022, 06:03 PM

Originally Posted by z3n

I've never understood our obsession with calling Russian billionaires and media moguls "oligarchs". It seems like an embarrassed deflection from the fact that we have lots of "oligarchs" in the west, ones who control our politics and media almost entirely.

That's right. Piketty "..In the West, for example, apologists like to divide the rich in two categories. On the one hand, there are Russian oligarchs,Middle Eastern oil sheiks, and billionaires of various nationalities, be they Chinese, Guinean, Indian, or Indonesian....on the other hand, there are entrepreneurs, usually European or American, of whom Silicon valley serve as a paradigmatic example. Their contributions to global prosperity are widely praised. If they were properly rewarded for their efforts, some say, they would be even richer than they are..." etc.

------

Mearsheimer, today, "On Who Stands To Gain Most From Ukraine Russia War & What Could End Putin's Assault"

"It’s very clear if the Ukrainian military does very well against the Russian military, in the upcoming offensive that the Russian are going to launch in eastern Ukraine and the Russian forces are really being clobbered by all these Ukrainian drones and Javelin missiles, and so forth and so on,and that all this western intelligence that is being provided to the Ukrainians is a huge force multiplier.
If the Russian military begins to fall apart, then I think you are going to be in a very dangerous situation and if at the same time the Russian economy is beginning to hurt, and is even in the verge of collapsing I think at that point the Russians will think very seriously about trying to rescue the situation with nuclear weapons. The west is playing with fire here and more importantly what we are doing is leading Ukraine down the path to destruction.

(...) If the Russian military does well against the Ukrainians, the Americans will go to great lengths as will the Europeans to help the Ukrainians rescue the situation.
We are in a situation here where the Russians feel they cant lose. And the Americans and their European allies feel that they can’t lose. It would be a humiliating defeat for the US and especially for President Biden, if we were to lose this war,and Russia was to win a great victory,s we will go to great lengths to keep Ukraine fighting. As I’ve often said, we’re going to fight to the last Ukrainian, and the Russians are going to fight like crazy to make sure they don’t lose, so the question you have to ask yourself is where does this all end.

There are a reasonable number of reasonable people in the US and western Europe who are arguing that his war is liking to go on for years, and if you ask me this is a prescription for disaster, because the potential for an accident or some sort of incident that brings west into the fight, or creates a situation where nuclear weapons are used is always there and a war that's long facilitates big trouble.

Putin has to stay in the fight he can’t lose it, it would be a disaster for him politically, but it would be a disaster for his country. Again, he views this as an existential threat- Putin im my opinion is not going to quit, I don't see the Americans quitting and I don't think Ukrainians have the agency by themselves to stop this one, and for that reason I find hard to see how this one comes to an end anytime soon.

I believe that the solution to this whole problem has been there from the beginning. The solution is that Ukraine abandons any interest in becoming a part of NATO and becoming a western bulwark on Russia’s border. The solution is to Ukraine to become a neutral country and work out some sort of modus vivendi with Russia.

It’s sad to say but the Ukrainians really don’t have much choice to accommodate the Russians to a large extent. Pocking a stick in the Russian’s eye is a prescription to disaster, so a neutral Ukraine is a the solution and its been the solution all along but I don’t see how you get in neutral Ukraine a this point of time because a neutral Ukraine would be a victory for Russia would be a victory to Ukraine too, but the problem is it would make the Americans and their Europeans Allies very unhappy, because Ukraine would not be in NATO and furthermore inside Ukraine itself it would make the far right very unhappy. Zelensky has very little maneuver room because on his right are a large number of Ukrainians who don’t want him to make any concessions to the Russians and those far-right elements coupled with America’s unwillingness to see Russia win in any way means that Ukraine itself is unlikely to be able to push for neutral country.
---
China,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

For the US today there is one serious threat in the world today and its China, it is not Russia. China is a pure competitor...The US should be focusing laser-like on China it should be working overtime how to contain China, and at the same time it should be working with Russia as an ally to help contain China. India, Russia, The US should all be on the same side of the ledger all bent on containing China because China has the potential to be a remarkably powerful country.
Instead what the US has foolishly done is it has pick a fight with Russia it is bogged down in eastern Europe, it has done remarkably little in Asia especially in east Asia to explain to its allies how it plans to contain China, because it’s too busy thinking how to fight the Russians and we shouldn’t be fighting the Russians, we should be working to have some sort of alliance with the Russians... there is on winner of this Ukraine war, and that winner is China.

(...) But you never want to lose the sight that this is Ukraine who is paying the greatest price here.This country is being destroyed and I argued long ago that this is what would happen. I’m not saying this is justified, I’m saying this is what happens when you poke a great power like Russia in the eye and you present it with an existential threat. You do not want to underestimate how ruthless great powers can be and this includes the Unites States of America as well as Russia,when they think they’re facing an existential threat. And again Vladimir Putin thinks he is facing an existential threat and in my opinion that makes him very dangerous".

-----
I have to say, those who do not understand this suffer from intellectual myopia, and that includes a substantial number of world leaders.

**Bande Nere** · April 14, 2022, 06:43 PM

Ludicus, if I attempt an aswer to this latest

, are you actually going to read what I write or will you be oblivious as usual, disappear and then come back with the latest quote by Marshmallow?

He is wrong. He does not understand Putin. He has proven that time and time again. Intellectually myopic is his continuos identification of Putin's needs and fears as Russia's own.

**Roma_Victrix** · April 14, 2022, 06:49 PM

Originally Posted by z3n

I've never understood our obsession with calling Russian billionaires and media moguls "oligarchs". It seems like an embarrassed deflection from the fact that we have lots of "oligarchs" in the west, ones who control our politics and media almost entirely.

Agreed, but I'm just using the terminology of the cited article.

Billionaires regardless of nationality can be depicted as oligarchs in whichever nation they reside and base their business, and usually have undue influence in governmental halls of power. As for the Russian billionaires being sanctioned by the West, they have a hand in industries that directly or indirectly feed the Russian war machine. In this case oligarch is a well deserved title.

Originally Posted by z3n

To clarify a common misconception, the white house was burned down by the preeminent superpower of the time, Britain (not Canada) via the royal navy and royal marines from Britain.

Yes, but Canada was part of said British Empire, and while Admiral Cockburn was an Englishman of Scottish descent born in London, Major General Robert Ross wasn't from Great Britain, he was an Anglo-Irishman born in County Down in the Kingdom of Ireland (controlled by the British crown).

Originally Posted by Ludicus

In France, Macron, according to the news, declined to repeat Biden’s accusation that Russia was carrying out genocide against Ukrainians. I have been hearing that this invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, is a "brutal, civilizational setback". And I started thinking "with my buttons" whether the brutal Vietnam War - with the bombing with napalm, with the terrible "agent orange”, and with the "rolling thunder", which killed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese (old, women and children included) - was a civilizational progress?

“Bomb the North Vietamese back to the Stone Age!” Back Into The Stone Age-The Ledger Opinion- 1972

And I also wondered, always "with my buttons", if the brutal invasion and military occupation of Iraq, under the leadership of the “kind and humane” Bush , and the even more “kind and humane” Tony Blair, (with many allies in the queue behind them), during which over one hundred thousand Iraqis (old, women and children included) are said to have died, was also a gigantic progress of civilization?!

Most sane people recognize the Vietnam War was a farce, as was the Iraq War (one could argue GWB was far worse than Trump, especially on foreign policy). What does any of this have to do with Ukraine? This is just a bunch of irrelevant babbling. Even with the most cynical and worst intentions of the USA in mind in regards to enriching military industrial contractors and securing oil in Iraq, the most hideous neocons behind this venture didn't actually give a crap about annihilating random Iraqis, and they certainly didn't deport them by the hundreds of thousands while forcefully adopting their children back in the USA. Even Vietnam was mostly about propping up South Vietnam as an ally, much like South Korea in the Korean War, in "Domino theory" paranoia about the growth of communist states allied with the Soviet Union.

How is that comparable to Russia currently blitzing through Ukraine, annihilating villages and towns, deporting hundreds of thousands in Soviet-style resettlement programs, and expanding its borders in a Russian version of Manifest Destiny? Your argument would make sense if the US was currently attempting to absorb neighboring Canada or Mexico while denying any Canadian or Mexican self-identity or saying Canadians and Mexicans don't really exist, only the American nationality exists. Even the worst and bloodiest American misadventures in the past half century didn't involve anything remotely as dystopian as this, i.e. classic ethnic cleansing. For that matter, I don't think you've produced a single post in this thread that didn't involve some sort of oddball comparison of Russia to the United States in an effort to deflect what imperialist Russia is currently doing.

You raise a good point about the silly demonization of Russian culture, which shouldn't be tied to Putin's warmongering, but your posts are almost as obnoxious as Bitterhowl's, and that's quite an achievement. Considering his posts are just pieces of Kremlin mouthpiece schlock.

Originally Posted by Ludicus

I have to say, those who do not understand this suffer from intellectual myopia, and that includes a substantial number of world leaders.

This brilliant bit of analysis you have here ignores the fact Ukraine was neutral before Russia started invading it in 2014 with the seizure of Crimea. Meanwhile, Sweden and Finland will soon join NATO and become untouchable to the Russians (if they weren't already as members of the EU, which has its own security guarantees). The world power with the greatest agency to stop this conflict is Russia, you know, the ones who started this entire mess for no particularly good reasons other than Putin's paranoia and egotistic legacy building.

**bitterhowl** · April 14, 2022, 07:42 PM

Well, Russian flagship finally sunken, feel free to celebrate. Btw, Ukrainian flagship was sunken at the first day of warfare to hide financial crimes on it's repairs and support. Small difference but important.

Waiting for new interviews from international pacifists from Azovstal' meanwhile.

And an example from Baltic media here. Just... Baltic media, you know.

It is a real low point at war to hide behind children.
This also applies to the information war. This photograph of a boy is wide shared by the Balts as a consequence of the actions of the Russian military during a special operation in Ukraine. Allegedly, the child is in the Zaporozhye regional hospital.

The truth is – this boy was blown up in 2015 by a Ukrainian shell in Volodarskoye near Mariupol. This village was far from the front line at that time. His name is Kolya, and his 4-year-old brother died then.

Photo by the link.
https://t.me/RTDOCR/276

**EmperorBatman999** · April 14, 2022, 07:45 PM

Originally Posted by Ludicus

That's right. Piketty "..In the West, for example, apologists like to divide the rich in two categories. On the one hand, there are Russian oligarchs,Middle Eastern oil sheiks, and billionaires of various nationalities, be they Chinese, Guinean, Indian, or Indonesian....on the other hand, there are entrepreneurs, usually European or American, of whom Silicon valley serve as a paradigmatic example. Their contributions to global prosperity are widely praised. If they were properly rewarded for their efforts, some say, they would be even richer than they are..." etc.

I'm not sure what Pickety, or you, are trying to say here. Arab Oil Sheiks? They perpetuate slavery, particularly in Qatar (this makes AJ+'s race-baiting especially idiotic and hypocritical). Russian Oligarchs? They deprived their country of the chance to westernize and join the international market because of their parasitic kleptocracy. At least American entrepreneurs, for the kind of wealth-hording they commit, have been committed to the concept of innovating America and Europe's economy and social life

------

Mearsheimer, today, "On Who Stands To Gain Most From Ukraine Russia War & What Could End Putin's Assault"

Or, it could be that Putin has a deluded idea that his nation's "destiny" stands above any other nation's, and that Russia just somehow deserves to control others, all supposedly to contain a non-existent threat. Everyone should have learned the idiocy of "National Destinies" in 1945.

---
China,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

(...) But you never want to lose the sight that this is Ukraine who is paying the greatest price here.This country is being destroyed and I argued long ago that this is what would happen. I’m not saying this is justified, I’m saying this is what happens when you poke a great power like Russia in the eye and you present it with an existential threat. You do not want to underestimate how ruthless great powers can be and this includes the Unites States of America as well as Russia,when they think they’re facing an existential threat. And again Vladimir Putin thinks he is facing an existential threat and in my opinion that makes him very dangerous".[/I]

-----
I have to say, those who do not understand this suffer from intellectual myopia, and that includes a substantial number of world leaders.

If China attacked Taiwan and the US sent military aid to defend the island, you'd say it was American imperialism trying to tell Asian people (rather than Eastern Europeans) what political system they should live under.

**bitterhowl** · April 14, 2022, 07:46 PM

Originally Posted by nhytgbvfeco2

Much like losing and withdrawing from the north, the deaths of some 40 generals, the complete failure to bypass Mykolaiv and the fact that the Russians got bombed in the exact same spot in the Kherson airport 15(!) times and continue to deploy there, the sinking of the Moscow was also, always, part of The Plan™.
Imagine losing your flagship fighting a nation with essentially no navy.

Correct me if I wrong - US lost some ships without any warfare last years? Or it was because of Afghanistan campaign maybe?

**Vanoi** · April 14, 2022, 07:50 PM

Originally Posted by bitterhowl

Well, Russian flagship finally sunken, feel free to celebrate. Btw, Ukrainian flagship was sunken at the first day of warfare to hide financial crimes on it's repairs and support. Small difference but important.

Ukraine scuttled their flagship. Their flagship was also only a corvette. Not very comparable to the ship Russia lost. This was another embarrassing moment for the Russian navy.

**Bande Nere** · April 14, 2022, 07:54 PM

Originally Posted by bitterhowl

Well, Russian flagship finally sunken, feel free to celebrate. Btw, Ukrainian flagship was sunken at the first day of warfare to hide financial crimes on it's repairs and support. Small difference but important.

Ukraine ain't Russia buddy, pocketing money supposed to finance pro-russian ukranian insurrectionists just cost 150 FSB agents of the Firth Directorate their freedom.

Ships get sunk to prevent capture all the time, if that was supposed to be a "gotcha", it wasn't.

So. Chernobyl? You know everything about it, right?

**EmperorBatman999** · April 14, 2022, 08:01 PM

Originally Posted by Vanoi

Ukraine scuttled their flagship. Their flagship was also only a corvette. Not very comparable to the ship Russia lost. This was another embarrassing moment for the Russian navy.

The Russian Navy has a rich and proud history!

**Bande Nere** · April 14, 2022, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by bitterhowl

Correct me if I wrong - US lost some ships without any warfare last years? Or it was because of Afghanistan campaign maybe?

What do you mean? And what's your point?

Between December 1941 and September 1945, over 350 U.S. Navy warships and patrol craft were sunk or damaged beyond repair. In the nearly seven decades since less than 30 ships have been lost directly due to enemy action or accidents.

https://news.usni.org/2012/08/28/not...t-world-war-ii

You might want to downplay the relevance of the sinking of the ~~Moskva~~ Snake Island Memorial Reef, but aside from the obvious meme power, there are other reasons why this has a whole lot of relevance.

It also appears this ship took part in Aleppo's massacre.

BTW, Chernobyl?

**TheDarkKnight** · April 14, 2022, 09:11 PM

I'm legitimately giggling at the fact that bitter tried to make a comparison to a Fletcher museum ship sinking after 80 years to the debacle of the Moskva. And now just ignoring that it was pointed out to them.

Wasn't the Moskva also the only significant ship in the Black Sea Fleet? Wasn't it protecting all the other lesser ships from the exact

that sunk it?

Honestly I'd probably put money on a newly built Fletcher-class vs the Moskva in an all out brawl. Those were tough little tin cans.

**Pinarius** · April 14, 2022, 09:49 PM

It was a beautiful ship ...

**Derpy Hooves** · April 14, 2022, 11:01 PM

Originally Posted by TheDarkKnight

I'm legitimately giggling at the fact that bitter tried to make a comparison to a Fletcher museum ship sinking after 80 years to the debacle of the Moskva. And now just ignoring that it was pointed out to them.

Wasn't the Moskva also the only significant ship in the Black Sea Fleet? Wasn't it protecting all the other lesser ships from the exact

that sunk it?

Honestly I'd probably put money on a newly built Fletcher-class vs the Moskva in an all out brawl. Those were tough little tin cans.

It was actually 25% of the Black Sea Fleet tonnage

**antaeus** · April 14, 2022, 11:05 PM

Originally Posted by bitterhowl

Yes... But what about...

But...

What...

About...

**StarDreamer** · April 14, 2022, 11:24 PM

Originally Posted by bitterhowl

Well, Russian flagship finally sunken, feel free to celebrate. Btw, Ukrainian flagship was sunken at the first day of warfare to hide financial crimes on it's repairs and support. Small difference but important.

Waiting for new interviews from international pacifists from Azovstal' meanwhile.

And an example from Baltic media here. Just... Baltic media, you know.

Photo by the link.
https://t.me/RTDOCR/276

The thing you should have realized is when the Russians said that there had been a detonation of ammunition, as in a magazine explosion a ship has 3 possible options.
1) sink,
2) get towed to port to get scrapped,
3) be in repair for years, if there is the capacity to repair it(something that didn't seem likely Russia has any more)

In any case it would never haven been able to travel on its own power to port, nor would it again take part in this "special *cry**cry* everyone hates Russia operation".

**bitterhowl** · April 15, 2022, 12:14 AM

Originally Posted by Morticia Iunia Bruti

Moskwa sunk in stormy sea...

Hmm 5-10 knots Surface winds, Pressure 1021 milibar, Wave heights 0,5-1,5 Meters

https://www.passageweather.com

A quiet day in the Black Sea

Yup

https://t.me/russiakuban/17709?single
https://t.me/russiakuban/17699?single
https://t.me/russiakuban/17687