If it moves you, here's a place to send donated items to the territorial defense forces.

https://shortageua.com/us

ShotOver said:

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ABATTBQ11 said:

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Russia just made the brigade responsible for the crimes in Bucha a decorated "Guards" brigade for their, "heroism."


**** Russia

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Link?

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https://www.axios.com/putin-brigade-honor-bucha-41249f9d-93af-4e3b-899d-b2193147b516.html

Meanwhile on Russian state TV: host Vladimir Solovyov and several angry pundits smoothly descend from bashing Tweets by @anneapplebaum into straight-up antisemitism. Judge for yourself—and remember, these are the same people claiming they're in Ukraine to "eradicate Nazism." pic.twitter.com/jbPZus3ecI

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) April 20, 2022

Full thread:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1516932323861688320.html

For an example of local impact, Kharkiv had a pre-war population of 1.4 million.

80% of the population has fled the fighting, leaving <300,000 remaining.

1,922 high rise buildings have been destroyed.@WCKitchen partners were injured in indiscriminate missile attacks. pic.twitter.com/6J7cKaa1fj

— Peter Corless 🌎☮ 💛💉💉+💉🇺🇸🇮🇪🇺🇦🌻 (@PeterCorless) April 21, 2022

Also this tweet https://t.co/IBetbsGZdc

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) April 21, 2022

Baaaaahahahahahaha!!!!

Big news from Russia today is that China's payment system UnionPay which was widely advertised in Russia as an alternative to Visa/Mastercard, has refused to cooperate with Russia's largest bank Sberbank our of fear of being sanctioned by the West.https://t.co/1yb10LfNcE

— Maria Snegovaya (@MSnegovaya) April 20, 2022

Hard to even pick a highlight, but these passages ring especially true pic.twitter.com/vDbqvhu0AC

— Neil Hauer (@NeilPHauer) April 20, 2022

Rossticus said:

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Hard to even pick a highlight, but these passages ring especially true pic.twitter.com/vDbqvhu0AC

— Neil Hauer (@NeilPHauer) April 20, 2022

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The part where the disproportionally poor make up the majority of their fighting forces is something I tried to convey to someone on the other thread a while back. The fact that they live in abject poverty and are surprised by things like Nutella and streetlights on every street. That poster flat out refused to believe me.

Americans who have barely traveled outside of their state have little to no real sense of how the world works. It's frustrating at times. Desperately poor and barely literate lower class and ethnic peoples have a very bad record in wartime when it comes to "civilized combat". Look who makes up the bulk of their trigger pullers. Those weird kids we shied away in school from who would torture bugs and have fresh bruises every day from "falling down the stairs" are common in their ranks. A quick study of history would prove how brutal the Russians are in war. This is nothing new.

The other fact that they don't have a solid NCO corps makes it about 10x worse. No one to reliably ride herd on these killers and rein them in. I cannot stress how important having that corps is in a professional army. I would even posit it is what MAKES a professional army. Officers order but NCOs guide those who make those orders come true. A simple but crucial concept. Russia doesn't have that established level and I will say that it is a measurable contributing factor in their woes during this Special Military Operation. On both effectiveness of their forces, and their continued brutality.

Our forces are largely made up of the "poor" as well. It's always been a great place for a kid with no other future.

They are evil and train poor rapists and murderers. We train those same poor to have values, respect command, respect themselves, represent their country with honor.

Being poor doesn't make them killers.

https://russiavsworld.org/i-asked-god-to-die-quickly-a-17-year-old-girl-from-mariupol-speaks-of-hunger-fear-and-filtration-camp/


After reading this, and other stories from Ukraine, I can't feel bad for any Russian fertilizing Ukrainian soil. I also don't feel bad for their families, even the ones who find out little Sergey is dead when they get a picture of his mangled or burned out corpse.

**** Russia

Either way this goes there will be a lot of dead. I'd prefer it end with stacks of dead Russian soldiers and Ukrainians maintaining their independence and freedom to self determination in exchange for all the civilian lives the Russians have extinguished and ruined.

This is all 100% on Russian inability to cope with an "inferior" neighboring country and people escaping their attempts at manipulation, subversion, and control.

I never said our boys were drafted as common fodder. Our volunteer force absolutely has a poor kids in it . My point was so what. Maybe I'm older but easily a dozen kids from my high school joined because……..no job skills, no money for college, etc. but whatever you want to believe.

"Kids with no future in the civilian world have no future in the US military either."

Can not disagree more. The military has given so much opportunity to men in my family and many friends. Lots of them had no future with out the service.

Build It said:

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"Kids with no future in the civilian world have no future in the US military either."

Can not disagree more. The military has given so much opportunity to men in my family and many friends. Lots of them had no future with out the service.

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"Kids with no potential in the civilian world have no potential in the US military either."

Fixed it

Build It said:

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Our forces are largely made up of the "poor" as well. It's always been a great place for a kid with no other future.

They are evil and train poor rapists and murderers. We train those same poor to have values, respect command, respect themselves, represent their country with honor.

Being poor doesn't make them killers.

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Exactly, that's my point. We have a strong military with a rich history and culture that is reinforced by our NCOs. You need that guiding hand to steer away from what could have been. I could have definitely made that link more clear though. The Russians don't have that. They take those thugs and hard timers and just arm them with no supporting moral or ethical backup.

Not everyone growing up poor is a bad seed. But there is also absolutely no doubt in my mind that there are higher chances of turning out that way in a poor but competitive upbringing like you find in ghettos and barrios. Bad seeds are largely sculpted by wrong examples in tough upbringings. We have a way out of that lifestyle in our armed forces. The Russians largely do not.

" Investigation of journalists. As a French company, bypassing sanctions, it is helping Russians target Ukrainians. I would like to share the video: youtu.be/7FPgEIrMG7M "

Розслідування журналістів . Як французька компанія в обхід санкцій допомагає росіянам прицільно вбивати українців. Просив би розповсюдити відео: https://t.co/bbeRFxeEE0 pic.twitter.com/JYOnKDXV1i

— Харьков даст пи@ды рашистам! (@kharkiv_warnews) April 21, 2022

Excellent overview of Putin's options at this point. BAD CHOICES

Build It said:

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I never said our boys were drafted as common fodder. Our volunteer force absolutely has a poor kids in it . My point was so what. Maybe I'm older but easily a dozen kids from my high school joined because……..no job skills, no money for college, etc. but whatever you want to believe.

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You said they were, "largely made up of "poor" kids." That's not true. I was on recruiting duty and spent a few years in uniform despite having a degree from our alma mater that would have given me opportunities for professional development in the private sector.

But I have to say that so far all the people in the uniform that I’ve seen come in chose to pay for their drinks.

— Olga Rudenko (@olya_rudenko) April 21, 2022

Quote:

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Robert McNamara really screwed things up with his Project 100,000 which lowered mental aptitude standards to induct 100,000 Mental Category IV (21-30th percentile) recruits. McNamara called those recruits "New Standards Men" but his project was a failure because they failed to complete training in high numbers and were discharged for disciplinary reasons. Kids with no future in the civilian world have no future in the US military either.

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This is so true. Some of the stories of these men (dubbed McNamara's Morons) are absolutely infuriating. There have probably been worse Sec Defs, but I can't think of one.

Its arms industry isn't even geared to produce weapons for Germany. It's primarily designed to sell weapons abroad. We can talk about how this is short-sighted and even stupid. But that makes it no less true.
2/end

— Peter Zeihan (@PeterZeihan) April 21, 2022

Build It said:

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Our forces are largely made up of the "poor" as well. It's always been a great place for a kid with no other future.

They are evil and train poor rapists and murderers. We train those same poor to have values, respect command, respect themselves, represent their country with honor.

Being poor doesn't make them killers.

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Not factual.

93% of the officer class of the US military have bachelors degrees.

the vast majority of our NCOs went into the military at 18 and are earning $50K by the time they are a senior sergeant- the same amount of the median salary of US households.

blacks make up about the same proportion of the US military as they do the general population: 16.74% to 12.56%

nortex97 said:

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Its arms industry isn't even geared to produce weapons for Germany. It's primarily designed to sell weapons abroad. We can talk about how this is short-sighted and even stupid. But that makes it no less true.
2/end

— Peter Zeihan (@PeterZeihan) April 21, 2022

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Germany is finding a way around its self-imposed restrictions on heavy arms transfers to Ukraine.

"The planned workaround would see NATO ally Slovenia send a large number of its T-72 battle tanks to Ukraine. To replace these, Germany would then send Slovenia a number of Marder tanks and Fox wheeled tanks from its own supplies."

TANKS

Note: Neither Marder nor Fox are tanks. Slovenia's tanks are M-84s, which are significantly upgraded T-72s.

nortex97 said:

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Its arms industry isn't even geared to produce weapons for Germany. It's primarily designed to sell weapons abroad. We can talk about how this is short-sighted and even stupid. But that makes it no less true.
2/end

— Peter Zeihan (@PeterZeihan) April 21, 2022

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No country or leader was happier to see Trump out of office than Germany and Merkel. Trump and Mattis twisted their arm to contribute more to defense spending but they still never made it above 1.25%. As posted on this thread many pages ago, he beat them up over becoming dependent on Russian natural gas and Nordstream II and ridiculed their worship of the Green Party's no-nuke and no-petroleum mantra.

Ulysses90 said:

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nortex97 said:

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Its arms industry isn't even geared to produce weapons for Germany. It's primarily designed to sell weapons abroad. We can talk about how this is short-sighted and even stupid. But that makes it no less true.
2/end

— Peter Zeihan (@PeterZeihan) April 21, 2022

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No country or leader was happier to see Trump out of office than Germany and Merkel. Trump and Mattis twisted their arm to contribute more to defense spending but they still never made it above 1.25%. As posted on this thread many pages ago, he beat them up over becoming dependent on Russian natural gas and Nordstream II and ridiculed their worship of the Green Party's no-nuke and no-petroleum mantra.

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This type of data basically kills one of Russia's main talking points about the expansion of NATO. NATO did physically expand with many of the former Eastern Bloc members (who had been conditioned over decades to not trust Russia). However, the military expenditure decreases over this same time by most of the old guard European NATO members basically meant that NATO was, in fact, contracting in terms of actual military strength investment and power. NATO's European members (and Canada), as a whole, were becoming weaker, not stronger, over the time period pointed to by the Kremlin

Experts on int. crimes and human rights with extended experience of working at International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the ICC, the ECHR are assisting us to ensure the inevitability of Russia's responsibility. #StandWithUkraine️ pic.twitter.com/9Wzc9V37Sr

— Iryna Venediktova (@VenediktovaIV) April 21, 2022

Not related, but related.

Chatter at IMF spring meetings
1. Perception of Germany is terrible
2. Far more reputational damage than expected
3. EU embargo off limits until after French election
4. People are genuinely rethinking China post-war
5. LatAm is the clear favorite in EM
6. People are long Turkey

— Robin Brooks (@RobinBrooksIIF) April 21, 2022

a grave in Mariupol. Inscription on the cross: "Nameless Grandma" pic.twitter.com/3s2Eki0cKR

— UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) April 21, 2022

Too bad Biden is such a wuss.

US needs to send a negotiator to Germany and simply state:

Your lack of defense spending and exposure, and free riding on NATO is going to have a disproportional impact on your access to the US markets.

Think about it.

Build It said:

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I never said our boys were drafted as common fodder. Our volunteer force absolutely has a poor kids in it . My point was so what. Maybe I'm older but easily a dozen kids from my high school joined because……..no job skills, no money for college, etc. but whatever you want to believe.

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LOL my friend.

so a dozen kids from your high school had "no skills".

what "skills" did you have as a 17 year old?!?

I'm sure I shouldn't have said lots. The fact is I came from a poor neighborhood. Many much poorer than I. Many of those kids joined because their parents sucked, they had no money, and the military was a great place to get away from there. I still know many of them and all are great humans. That's all I was trying to say. Let's get back to Ukraine. Slava Ukraini

For the Michael Tracey fans.

Rolling around his daily life trying to ignore the offer to go to Ukraine fully funded, upon seeing signs he gets thrown into a conniption.
"Food?! For the needy!? This is peak imperialist war hawking!"
We are witnessing the mental collapse of a man. https://t.co/jPVPscM4ZW

— Mr Ghostly (@Guardian_Mario) April 21, 2022