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2022-02-24 01:31:43
uziq
Member
+496|3699
could you imagine being the ukrainian president, for a second? LMAO think about this guy's character arc.

a few years ago he was their version of alec baldwin doing hacky sub-SNL impersonations of their then-president. he was a political comedian doing cringe bits to camera. a sort of ukrainian bill maher.

the comedian jester doing impressions of the corrupt president becomes, amazingly, in a world-historical joke, the president of ukraine.

as if that wasn't an insane enough twist, within a year of ascending to power he is the cynosure of the entire world, as the impeachment of the world's most powerful man and most consequential power hangs on a phone-call he had.

but wait. history isn't done with you yet. you're now being ushered into the bunker as world war 3 begins to unfold.

bet this guy just wishes he could go back to making TikToks.
2022-02-24 01:34:22
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|7019|PNW

As if it wasn't enough for everyone involved that COVID-19 killed so many of us. Imagine if WW1 started on the tail end of the Spanish Flu.
2022-02-24 01:35:24
uziq
Member
+496|3699
the spanish influenza pandemic was tightly interwoven with the movements/displacements of people, troop movements, etc, of the great war.

there's plenty of theories as to why the spanish flu in particular killed so many young, healthy people, i.e. soldiers/returning soldiers, and what role exposure to previous disease(s) may have had in the conditions of the war.

http://ww1centenary.oucs.ox.ac.uk/body- … world-war/

The American military experience in World War I and the influenza pandemic were closely intertwined. The war fostered influenza in the crowded conditions of military camps in the United States and in the trenches of the Western Front in Europe. The virus traveled with military personnel from camp to camp and across the Atlantic, and at the height of the American military involvement in the war, September through November 1918, influenza and pneumonia sickened 20% to 40% of U.S. Army and Navy personnel. These high morbidity rates interfered with induction and training schedules in the United States and rendered hundreds of thousands of military personnel non-effective. During the American Expeditionary Forces' campaign at Meuse-Argonne, the epidemic diverted urgently needed resources from combat support to transporting and caring for the sick and the dead. Influenza and pneumonia killed more American soldiers and sailors during the war than did enemy weapons.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862337/

Last edited by uziq (2022-02-24 01:45:46)

2022-02-24 02:00:46
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|7019|PNW

Right, first documented case of the Spanish flu was in the last year of WW1 and continued for a couple years after. I said "tail end," like imagine if the pandemic had started in 1912/13 and everyone still went to war over a bunch of nonsense just as we were licking our wounds from that.

US entered the war late anyway.
2022-02-24 02:15:39
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|7019|PNW

Hearing a lot of support for Russia in various online circles, a little jarring as the same people would have been losing their minds over it in the Soviet 80s. "The Ukrainians are Nazis!" What, the Azov Battalion with its 1000 members? It's a country of 40 million people. I could ask them to substantiate their claims, but when has that ever yielded results with these folks.

Strangely, not hearing a whole lot from Russian contacts about this stuff.
2022-02-24 02:32:03
Cybargs
Moderated
+2,285|6963

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Hearing a lot of support for Russia in various online circles, a little jarring as the same people would have been losing their minds over it in the Soviet 80s. "The Ukrainians are Nazis!" What, the Azov Battalion with its 1000 members? It's a country of 40 million people. I could ask them to substantiate their claims, but when has that ever yielded results with these folks.

Strangely, not hearing a whole lot from Russian contacts about this stuff.
ukranians are such nazis they elected a jew president. seems legit.
https://cache.www.gametracker.com/server_info/203.46.105.23:21300/b_350_20_692108_381007_FFFFFF_000000.png
2022-02-24 02:48:07
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|7019|PNW

"The Ukrainians are Nazis!" exclaim people who find no issue with their fellow Republicans standing with Nazi flag wavers.
2022-02-24 03:13:47
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,815|6353|eXtreme to the maX
The Russians were much better people than the Nazis after all.
Fuck Israel
2022-02-24 03:53:52
uziq
Member
+496|3699
the russians defeated the nazis. there’s no way we would be able to have all of our spielberg-cliché d-day triumphalism if it wasn’t for the fact that the soviets were tanking all the boss dps on the eastern front.

this is historical commonplace. yawn. talking about the ‘evil’ soviets vs. nazis is dumb in this context.

both terms are highly fraught and highly weaponised in postmodern russia/eastern europe. many russians are nostalgic for stalinism. ukraine had a major role in fighting back against nazism. at the same time, it has its share of nationalists who have fought back against the soviet form of ‘imperialism’.

it’s complicated. in ukrainian independence/resistance marches you find hard-right ultras parading with LGBTQ+ campaigners with rainbow flags. history is often a lot more vexed than ‘lol nazis were bad but did you know stalin was even worse!’ the real world can’t be summarised in an upvoted reddit comment.

Last edited by uziq (2022-02-24 03:56:17)

2022-02-24 05:09:46
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,815|6353|eXtreme to the maX
Didn't the Russians exterminate more of their own people than the Germans did?

This whole thing has neat parallels with the invasion of Iraq, a moronic president and his cronies spent a decade plotting, war justified on invented grounds which no-one seriously believed, the population bombarded with propaganda and lies to support it.
Fuck Israel
2022-02-24 05:13:57
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+641|3966
The Russians accusing the Ukrainians and Baltic states of being Nazis etc. is basically identity politics. Do Russian Lives Matter?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
2022-02-24 11:28:46
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+641|3966
A lot of videos from the Ukrainian side coming out. The Ukrainians shot down Russian helicopters and planes. Destroyed a Russian armored column. Putting up a good fight at least. Of course the Russians are mauling them too but just don't put it on Twitter. People are interested in this since this is the first peer to peer modern war in generations. See what works and doesn't.

Anti-war protest in Russia. I assume many Russians are not enthusiastic about killing people so similar to them. Imagine if this war is the downfall of the Russian regime? One can dream.

I hope we take a lot of Ukrainian refugees after this. I look forward to seeing Ukrainian kids in my room.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
2022-02-24 11:35:27
BVC
Member
+325|6942
I wonder if Ukraine has (m)any sleeper cells in Russia.
2022-02-24 11:53:44
uziq
Member
+496|3699
i so want shahters pro-putin-but-not-pro-putin take. he was such a fascinating insight into the way that russians think and have so casually aided and abetted putin's rise.

unfortunately i am two-thirds sure that shahter got RIP'd at some point during the pandemic. he was in ill-health before this thing, iirc, and it's highly unusual for him to not at least visit a few times a year.
2022-02-24 12:15:40
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+641|3966
I wonder how many old members got RIP'd by COVID.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
2022-02-24 12:16:33
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+641|3966
Safe to say if anyone here just stop posting one day something happened to him. BF2s is Jones Town now. Nobody is getting out alive.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
2022-02-24 12:45:25
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|7019|PNW

Jay is technically here, but he's apparently been lurking for the past 2 years analysing posts for content about himself because he so obviously has otherwise better things to do than take our abuse or whatever.

I'm more likely to get wiped out in a traffic collision than COVID at this point. I don't have anything like instructions in a will abou notifying people in my real-named social medias. They can find the obituary years later like everyone else.

A college mate from the early aughts would probably put two and two together and let our ragtag Steam circle know.
2022-02-24 12:47:21
Larssen
Member
+99|2134
2 cents: the invasion seems to be more extensive than initially predicted. Expectation was a swift occupation of the donbas and a limited war in eastern ukraine with air raids/missile stirkes/cyberattacks on the rest of the country. However what we're seeing is a full invasion & troop movement from 4 separate fronts and putin's stated ambition to demilitarise the country, i.e. defeat the armed forces entirely. That caused some surprise.

The interesting part is that it's not nearly progressing as fast as one would expect. The russians seem to hold off the bulk of their forces, perhaps to gauge initial reactions and to see if ukraine's armed forces waver without much of a fight. Critical infrastructure has been mostly spared from attacks and ground fighting hasn't been as intense or quickly moving as it would be if the assault were full on immediately. It seems the vast majority of the ground forces/mechanised infantry still haven't totally committed yet. Focus is also on military-strategic targets, mostly airfields so far.

This all could change in a matter of days of course, it's likely there will be fierce fighting along the land bridge route to connect crimea, and if regime change is desired, the current leadership will be hunted down too whether it be in kiev or when they pull back elsewhere.
2022-02-24 12:51:06
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|7019|PNW

What I understand is that every story I read out of there I'm going to assume is 100% BS until at least a day has passed (and then I'll consider it). We weren't being fed straight stories up to even last week.
2022-02-24 13:01:12
Larssen
Member
+99|2134
You can trust the above
2022-02-24 13:06:57
uziq
Member
+496|3699
didn’t you say you had super duper insider intelligence that putin wouldn’t invade? lol. a layman getting it wrong is wrong thing … maybe your intelligence on putin isn’t that great, considering the US and UK had both claimed to have intelligence of his concrete plans to fully invade over a week ago.

w/r/t intense fighting over the land bridge: haven’t they put all their commandos into ukrainian airfields for the purposes of securing air bridges? every pundit says that kyiv is a quagmire from a physical topography point of view. seems like flying in APCs and troops is much better.
2022-02-24 13:10:10
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|7019|PNW

Larssen wrote:

You can trust the above
Not meant as an immediate analysis of what you wrote. Just news in general, to say nothing of the disinformation wasteland of social media. I haven't forwarded anything or engaged in much conversation outside of here. I'm completely uninterested in undermining myself by forwarding fake news and having to issue a retraction later because even something Reuters is going to bungle locations, dates, contexts, or some other fact.
2022-02-24 13:10:15
Larssen
Member
+99|2134

Larssen wrote:

The ukrainian military holds fortified defensive positions along the borders of the current separatist/russian controlled areas. This means the russian military is very likely to start an offensive to remove the ukrainian presence from the entire region, somewhere in the coming days.

This may also involve missile and bombing campaigns on the rest of ukraine, depending on how heated the conflict will get. The independence recognition and the following 'peace operation' is a soft declaration of war.

My info indicates that the russian occupation/annexation will likely be limited to the donbas area. That's all I'll write. We'll see, but that seems expected considering various factors.
I haven't posted here on ukraine before I think but invasion was likely the moment we saw field hospitals and related supplies being sent to the front, which was a while ago.

Last edited by Larssen (2022-02-24 13:11:25)

2022-02-24 13:11:44
uziq
Member
+496|3699
except they’re going for full regime change/demilitarisation far beyond the donbas.

i’ll freely admit i didn’t see this one coming. but you’re claiming to have some top-secret intelligence, which is funny in-itself considering that the way the americans and brits have been playing it is to openly publicise all the ‘sensitive’ intelligence they have.
2022-02-24 13:18:58
Larssen
Member
+99|2134

uziq wrote:

w/r/t intense fighting over the land bridge: haven’t they put all their commandos into ukrainian airfields for the purposes of securing air bridges? every pundit says that kyiv is a quagmire from a physical topography point of view. seems like flying in APCs and troops is much better.
In a full on conventional assault communication channels would also have been bombed immediately. The ukrainian government would be cut off from its citizens. This hasn't happened, because these targets haven't been attacked as much yet (though some). The russian military is very capable and well organised, they can inflict far more destruction than they have so far with all the means they've amassed around the border. The use of air raids and artillery has also still been limited, instead a seeming preference for missile strikes followed by attempted occupation of some specific airstrips.

There's several thousands of tanks/tracked vehicles over the border that also have yet to be put to work in large numbers. Current incursions are very limited.

There's several possible reasons for this. Possibly maskirovka; in this instance confusing & disorienting the ukrainians with several 'false assaults' on multiple fronts. Possibly the wait & see I alluded to before. Possibly putin would like to take over the place with minimal damage too. Not entirely certain yet, but we can see that the whole thing is unfolding a little slowly.

uziq wrote:

except they’re going for full regime change/demilitarisation far beyond the donbas.

i’ll freely admit i didn’t see this one coming. but you’re claiming to have some top-secret intelligence, which is funny in-itself considering that the way the americans and brits have been playing it is to openly publicise all the ‘sensitive’ intelligence they have.
That post was from 2 days ago. I added context above. I alluded to you in a pm long ago in what sort of context I work.

Last edited by Larssen (2022-02-24 13:22:32)

 

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