LMCane said:

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Rossticus said:

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Never thought I'd have any concept how people felt about Hitler or Stalin in real time, in my lifetime. Putin has done less than 10% of what Hitler/Stalin each did. Think about that.

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10%?!

try 1% my friend.

Hitler and the Germans murdered 12 million humans

Stalin probably 20 million humans

losses in Ukraine are in the thousands

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Pretty sad that you think that. Like you want to see millions dead?

aggiehawg said:

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Ulysses90 said:

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Edward Snowden has gotten a lot quieter over the past month or so. He's usually quite opinionated and outspoken. Cat must have got his tongue.

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Probably dead or under house arrest.

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Biden will give the Russians $4 billion cash, flow in on pallets, to get him back. He will then immediately get a pardon.

Depends on if he's able to keep conscripting troops. Also depends on being able to replace equipment. Sanctions have cut military supply chains, so Russia can't readily replace a lot of what they're losing right now. Supposedly they've already stopped production on tanks.

LMCane said:

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Rossticus said:

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Never thought I'd have any concept how people felt about Hitler or Stalin in real time, in my lifetime. Putin has done less than 10% of what Hitler/Stalin each did. Think about that.

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10%?!

try 1% my friend.

Hitler and the Germans murdered 12 million humans

Stalin probably 20 million humans

losses in Ukraine are in the thousands

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Well I believe its a lot higher in aggregate over Ukrainian history. **** russia.

aggiehawg said:

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LMCane said:

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Rossticus said:

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Never thought I'd have any concept how people felt about Hitler or Stalin in real time, in my lifetime. Putin has done less than 10% of what Hitler/Stalin each did. Think about that.

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10%?!

try 1% my friend.

Hitler and the Germans murdered 12 million humans

Stalin probably 20 million humans

losses in Ukraine are in the thousands

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Pretty sad that you think that. Like you want to see millions dead?

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No one wants to see millions dead. In the larger concept of war and suffering, we (as Americans) cannot conceptualize the real costs of true total war. Which is why censorship of footage on this website is laughable. We NEED to see the brutal cost of war. No one Wants to see it but we Have to see it to understand. And even then, as we isolated Americans still need to see it.

It won't reach our shores, but we will feel the implications as the post WWII global order dissolves. It's been 2 decades + in happening and here it is at our doorstep.

And this is just 2 countries the USA rarely gives 2 thoughts about. The EU should be ****ting their pants. We will suffer, but to a lesser degree. The nearly complete utopia we've lived in for 70 years is coming a very abrupt end. And that Utopia had involved a lot of internal disorder which will also get worse.

Our best of times is now in the rearview. And we have ****ing morons at the helm.

In #Irpen, the occupiers shot women and girls and then drove tanks over them

The mayor of the city, Oleksandr Markushin, said this in an interview pic.twitter.com/PGmcyzQYdV

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) April 3, 2022

❗Just another day in Russia…
Share this video. Let the world know that Russians just want to erase #Ukraine — both as a state and as a nation.#StopRussia #StopPutin #WarCrimes #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/modUb1QodJ

— Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine - Ukrainian Parliament (@ua_parliament) April 3, 2022

April 2nd satellite imagery of Kherson shows that the graves I've mentioned before (https://t.co/pePHruqph2) are still being dug. Since the beginning of this invasion, ~824 grave plots have been dug in Kherson Cemetery.
Given what we know about Bucha this is very concerning pic.twitter.com/BVFahI8APd

— Nathan Ruser (@Nrg8000) April 3, 2022

Of these ~824 grave plots that have been dug, it looks as though approximately 300 of them have been filled in, while the others remain open. Hard to say this with as much confidence with the resolution, but this should be broadly correct.

— Nathan Ruser (@Nrg8000) April 3, 2022

Another step closer to WWIII. Hope Putin catches a bullet before we get there.

Europe has a big problem.

There is a fifth column among us in Germany.

Nearly 2.5 million Russian-Germans returned to Germany after the fall of the USSR in 1991.

Today, they gathered in Berlin to wave Russian, Soviet Union and “Z symbol”- flags. pic.twitter.com/KQkl9SFjTY

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 3, 2022

Berlin today. Good work Germany! https://t.co/bDClDOLKyo

— Vlad_Demchenko (@brokenpixelua) April 3, 2022

FriscoKid said:

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Russia is a terror group. They targeted civilians instead of the Ukraine army and I hope the west makes them pay dearly for their stupidity.

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We should give Ukraine missiles for them to launch into Russia. Why stop at blowing up an oil depot? It's a lot cheaper than fighter planes and it's great watching the Russians/the debt freak out.

Germany is not like the US in that they do not have a robust version of a First Amendment.

aggiehawg said:

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Germany is not like the US in that they do not have a robust version of a First Amendment.

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Nope. They're amazingly inconsistent between what they allow vs what they enforce as well.

Rossticus said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Germany is not like the US in that they do not have a robust version of a First Amendment.

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Nope. They're amazingly inconsistent between what they allow vs what they enforce as well.

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They also do have a very robust interior intelligence network, think of a less visible, nicer Stasi. Should this thing heat up between Germany and Russia more directly, there will be massive arrests of those Russians.

Some folks are tripping all over their d***s trying to figure out how to backtrack but still not to say "I was wrong and this is inexcusably bad". Apparently there's a track record.

What would help victims and families of those killed in #Bucha Ukraine more?
Is it:
A. Using your contacts and journalist skills to identify the culprits.
or
B: Rushing to Twitter to claim the deaths can be used as pretext against Russia to start WW3?https://t.co/StoIxeU0m5

— Mr Ghostly (@Guardian_Mario) April 3, 2022

To put it in perspective @ggreenwald deleted all his tweets about chemical weapons usage in Syria after experts reported facts contrary to Glenn's fake ass narrative about a war hungry "west" thirsting on poor Assad. How long will his Ukraine tweets last? https://t.co/9FZKaDtlZB

— Mr Ghostly (@Guardian_Mario) April 3, 2022

Unroll:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1510609239001214984.html

Not a surprise, but still...

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A major player in the global market for wheat and other agri-food products, Russia will instead focus on keeping itself fed, according to Medvedev, alongside supplying its friends and close allies.

Posting on his Telegram, Medvedev said that cutting off the likes of North America and the European Union from its agricultural produce would be a very good way of retaliating against sanctions imposed by the West.

"It so happened that the food security of many countries depends on our supplies," the Russian official wrote. "It turns out that our food is our quiet weapon. Quiet but ominous."

"The priority in food supplies is our domestic market. And price control," he continued. "We will supply food and crops only to our friends (fortunately, we have a lot of them, and they are not at all in Europe and not in North America). We will sell both for rubles and for their national currency in agreed proportions."

"We will not supply our products and agricultural products to our enemies," he went on to say. "And we won't buy anything from them (although we haven't bought anything since 2014, but the list of products prohibited for import can be further expanded)."

Medvedev's threat echoes others being made by the Russian government, such as that reportedly "unfriendly" nations will soon be forced to pay for a variety of Russian resources including the country's much sought after gas exports in rubles only, or be cut off from supply completely.

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Link

Who in the State Department thought this was a great idea?

Bono rocks, and I don’t just mean his music. He’s a caring, global-minded citizen who uses his talents for good. Thank you, Bono, for stopping by the @StateDept to discuss global health and humanitarian issues with us. pic.twitter.com/mbYrpmjvKG

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) April 2, 2022

Oh, FFS. Tone deaf as all hell.

I understand it is very hard to pay more for gas and gasoline. But in several years you will understand that this was a right thing to do. Because we now live not only paying more for everything. We now live in fear of being killed or raped or crashed by a Russian tank.

— Nika Melkozerova (@NikaMelkozerova) April 3, 2022

When I was in Poland immediately after the wall fell, Polish leaders kept talking about Katyn Forest, saying the West had misjudged Poland during the Cold War. That they had long memories and hated the Russian-dominated USSR. Katyn Forest is as real to Poles today as in 1940. https://t.co/7Z8TANrKmR

— Mike Walker (@New_Narrative) April 3, 2022

A pic of a person on the left identified as a victim of Bucha massacre.

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Putin's hotline to report 'traitors': Russian leader uses Soviet-era tactics by setting up phone lines and websites for 'good citizens' to inform on anyone speaking out against war in Ukraine

• Citizens encouraged to shop friends and family heard criticising the Ukraine war
• Woman arrested after stranger rang police following heated debate on invasion
• Texts are being sent to citizens with instructions on how to denounce each other

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Quote:

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Everyday Russians are being encouraged to inform on friends and family who criticise the invasion of Ukraine it has emerged.

Vladimir Putin is accused of dragging Russia back to 1937 after setting up telephone hotlines and websites for 'good citizens' to inform on 'traitors' to the state.

The move harks back to similar tactics employed by Soviet-era dictator Joseph Stalin, who used his secret police force - the NKVD - to eliminate anyone who spoke out against the Communist Party.

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Quote:

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More than a million people were sent to the Gulag between 1936-8 in what was known as the 'Great Purge', with any one from peasants to party members at risk of being branded a 'saboteur' or 'enemy of the people.'

Almost 100 years later, the Kremlin is reportedly sending citizens in several regions instructions via text on how to denounce one another, with dissenting voices being throw into jail.

Would-be informers can also use a dedicated channel on the social media platform Telegram.

A young shop assistant, 22, spent 24 hours in a cell this week after telling a stranger in a Moscow bar that she disagreed with the war in Ukraine.

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Quote:

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The woman told the Sunday Telegraph: 'It was just a chit chat... he got very upset that we didn't share his opinion and started arguing, saying that Putin and the war were absolutely right.'

While the man was ejected from the bar, within an hour the police had arrived and asked the woman and her friends to go outside.

'They had come for us,' she said, adding that she was thrown in a cell overnight before being fined for 'discrediting the Russian armed forces.'

Meanwhile at a school in Penza, central Russia, pupils shopped their own teacher after secretly recording her making anti-war comments.

Others reported included a woman in Siberia, who decorated a tree in her garden with blue and yellow ribbons - the colours of the Ukraine flag -, a man in Moscow who unfurled an actual Ukraine flag in his window and a police officer who was overheard criticising Putin's invasion.

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It is currently illegal to speak out against or show disapproval of the Ukraine invasion. Even calling it a 'war' is outlawed, with Putin branding it a 'special operation' to save the country from its Nazi leaders.
It comes after Putin sent a chilling warning to oligarchs on March 16, telling 'scum' traitors that loyal Russians will 'spit them out like a midge that flew into their mouths' - as he claimed Western 'attempts to have global dominance' is coming to an end.

The Russian President, speaking in a bombastic televised address from the Kremlin, warned the West would use 'those who earn their money here, but live over there' as a 'fifth column' to 'divide our society'.

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Link

Looks like the Purge has begun.

Rossticus said:

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Europe has a big problem.

There is a fifth column among us in Germany.

Nearly 2.5 million Russian-Germans returned to Germany after the fall of the USSR in 1991.

Today, they gathered in Berlin to wave Russian, Soviet Union and “Z symbol”- flags. pic.twitter.com/KQkl9SFjTY

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 3, 2022

Berlin today. Good work Germany! https://t.co/bDClDOLKyo

— Vlad_Demchenko (@brokenpixelua) April 3, 2022

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Wonder if those Russians are forgetting what Germany does to undesirables?

The key to this being successful is eager public complicity. And eager many are.

We asked for decades "how could the German people have permitted things to go that far"? "How could people do this to each other"?

We're now seeing a case study on how the Third Reich took root and why WW2 ultimately transpired in real time. And it's nauseating.

Rossticus said:

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The key to this being successful is eager public complicity. And eager many are.

We asked for decades "how could the German people have permitted things to go that far"? "How could people do this to each other"?

We're now seeing a case study on how the Third Reich took root and why WW2 ultimately transpired in real time. And it's nauseating.

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And the Allied Powers ground that lesson into Germany after the war. Don't see that happening this time. The Russians will never be brought to justice for these deliberate genocidal crimes.

Now CCP leadership shares a similar disdain for human life but the rest of the world, particularly the West does not. At which point does Xi rethink his alliance with Putin? If ever?

Without ample consequence, he won't. Without defeat there is neither justice nor substantive reinforcement that there is folly inherent in such action.

There must be dire consequences for Russia or the message is clear that the potential benefit outweighs the risk.

aggiehawg said:

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LMCane said:

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Rossticus said:

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Never thought I'd have any concept how people felt about Hitler or Stalin in real time, in my lifetime. Putin has done less than 10% of what Hitler/Stalin each did. Think about that.

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10%?!

try 1% my friend.

Hitler and the Germans murdered 12 million humans

Stalin probably 20 million humans

losses in Ukraine are in the thousands

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Pretty sad that you think that. Like you want to see millions dead?

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Give putin time!

Rossticus said:

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Without ample consequence, he won't. Without defeat there is neither justice nor substantive reinforcement that there is folly inherent in such action.

There must be dire consequences for Russia or the message is clear that the potential benefit outweighs the risk.

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So you don't think saving face for China will play into it ever? Having Putin's Russia as a world pariah and war criminals being backed by the Chinese as complicit in those crimes won't matter to Xi?

Taking on a super power has its consequences unfortunately even if they are your kinfolks. There is no good news coming, contrary to the reports coming out of Ukraine, nothing but more hell coming down the pike for EVERYONE.

Russia will start cutting off wheat and other vital world food supplies that will create mass starvation. Literally, millions of poor countries around the globe will suffer mass starvation. Putin is a monster and Europe does little to stop the killing. Zelenskyy needs to understand Europe will not really help him win, they will not help him with planes and manpower. They don't care if Ukraine is flatten. They are increasing their dwindling population with young refugees from Ukraine. It is a cold, brutal world.

.World Food Supply

aggiehawg said:

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Rossticus said:

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Without ample consequence, he won't. Without defeat there is neither justice nor substantive reinforcement that there is folly inherent in such action.

There must be dire consequences for Russia or the message is clear that the potential benefit outweighs the risk.

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So you don't think saving face for China will play into it ever? Having Putin's Russia as a world pariah and war criminals being backed by the Chinese as complicit in those crimes won't matter to Xi?

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Xi wont publicly support what's going on but Chinese info controls have shut off the reality of what's happening and are pumping pro-Russian disinfo out the wazoo.

Xi also, as expected, shot down Zelensky with regard to future security support as it pertains to preventing future Russian aggression.

China will support Russia on the down low where they can, help them rebuild their economy after this is all over (investing and getting their fingers into every weak point possible for opportunities at future leverage over them), and learn.

China can save face internally and externally while still getting what they want out of this, planning for the future, and assisting Russia economically. I'm doubtful that the west would penalize China as long as they avoid overtly supporting Russia's military operations or assist them in circumventing sanctions on a large scale.

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The stunning stalemate has led to an inflection point in the conflict. Though officials are not giving out hope for a possible negotiated effort to end the war, President Joe Biden's administration has expressed deep skepticism that Russian President Vladimir Putin harbors any intent of reducing the violence. Instead, there is a growing belief among U.S. officials that it may need to hold together its Western alliance and prepare its citizens for a war that could last for the foreseeable future.

"This is shaping up to be a real decision point for the administration," said Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO. "I don't know what they're going to do, but I do know the consequences if they don't act."

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The ability of Ukrainian forces to fend off the Russian invasion has at once pleasantly surprised the administration and forced it to rapidly adjust its approach to ending the conflict. Questions over how to punish the Kremlin have turned into debates over what kind of Russia could or even should emerge at the end of the war.

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Don't much like the sound of that but it has to be discussed.

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Those debates will surely intensify after the grisly discoveries Saturday in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, recently abandoned by Russian troops as part of their retreat. Ukranians retaking the city discovered a mass grave with nearly 300 bodies as well as found dozens of civilian corpses strewn in the streets, including men with their hands bound and children shot at close range.

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But the White House quickly clarified that the president was making a moral judgment and not calling for regime change. U.S. officials say they do not see a plausible path to removing Putin from power.
Instead, they are aiming for the next best thing: to weaken Russia's ability to project power by isolating it diplomatically, crushing its economy and demonstrating the hollowness of its military. In just a month's time, what was once perceived as Moscow's mighty war machine has been exposed and humbled, while Putin's aggression has strengthened a once-wayward NATO.

The growing concern is that Putin has something the Western alliance lacks: time. The Russian president has the political leeway to tolerate setbacks and absorb a prolonged, bloody engagement.

He's said that the West would've imposed these sanctions even without an invasion, so there's no need to curb the "special military operation." Despite certain touch-and-go moments throughout his two decades in power, the autocrat doesn't have the same political challenges that Biden or other world leaders have.

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The White House is also waiting to see what Zelenskyy is willing to accept in sputtering peace talks. Some officials believe that a deal to give up any territory, even if it would bring an end to the fighting, would be a tough sell for Zelenskyy at home because of the amount of Ukrainian blood that has been shed.

"The Ukrainians have a say in this," said a senior administration official, one of several U.S. and European officials interviewed for this piece who were not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive deliberations. "It's not up for us to declare victory … Zelenskyy will be the one who decides what is acceptable and what's not."

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This is rich:

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Meanwhile, U.S. officials fear support for the war at home could wane over time, especially if fuel prices remain high as the nation barrels into the midterm elections.

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Well, if they hadn't been lying about "Putin's Gas Prices" they wouldn't have to worry about as much, now would they?

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It's why Clark, the retired U.S. general who led NATO during Europe's last land war, thinks the Biden administration must be bolder in the conflict's next phase: "We've been reactive. We need to be proactive to see what's coming."

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Link

I'm doubtful that "proactive" and "Biden" can exist in the same book much less the same sentence.

Rossticus said:

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I'm doubtful that "proactive" and "Biden" can exist in the same book much less the same sentence.

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All of these calls that "we must do SOMETHING!" (Up to and including carving up Russia) without definition of that 'something' is and how to do it and what it looks like in action are getting me nervous.

It's the precursor for pretty much every quagmire we've entered in the past century.

And I absolutely agree with the proactive element - it's about 6 weeks too late for that now, though. Most of the preemptive options were removed from the table once Russia rolled across the border.