Lukashenko, above, the sock-puppet leader of Belarus, and joined to Putin's ass by the lips, was either too stupid to notice he's flagged Putin's next moves, or deliberately revealing information/disinformation by showing a sit map showing a Russian thrust from Odessa into Moldova.
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| Oops? Or on-purpose? Real? or Disinformation? |
For the Common Core grads, Moldova is another breakaway former Soviet Republic turned independent country since 1990, and which has been asking for admission to the EU since Russia invaded Ukraine. It sits between Ukraine and Romania, and up until last Thursday, shared zero border with Russia.
This pic is probably giving TPTB in Moldova and most of Western Europe a serious case of Forrest Whitaker eye.
If Putin is actually planning a two-fer move into another formerly free and independent country in Europe, to recreate the Soviet Union he clearly misses, I would expect NATO, having seen this kind of thing in Europe circa 1938, would begin general airstrikes on the entire Russian invasion force in Ukraine, which would be followed by a rather unnatural brightness in cities around the world in short order, unless Putin is granted early retirement at the muzzle of a gun at the next daily briefing.
Putin has screwed himself into a deep hole, and he just looks to keep digging.
If he "wins", Ukrainian resistance and guerrilla war will be endemic for 50 years, unless shortened by Canned Sunshine.
Russia, win or lose, is looking at a return to its global status in 1949, with an economy to match, except with the population of 2022. That means the next famine there doesn't hit Ukraine, it hits all of Russia.
Or, he gets the 9mm pension plan.
There is no scenario where he "wins", even if he conquers Ukraine wholesale, slaughters the leadership, and subjugates a fiercely independent people; and multiple ones where he pulls the entire world down in nuclear flames, starting with his own homeland.
Best case for everyone else still means you'd better start going long on food, fuel and a sturdy fallout bunker on defensible terrain. This summer is going to be bad, and next winter is going to be long and cold for a lot of people.
And we still have a doddering incompetent left holding the levers here, and he's not getting any better over time. But at least he assured us tonight, that he stands with the Iranian people.
13 comments:
Accidental, my rosey red * *sshole!! Just like the accidental release of the image of the thermonuclear drone torpedo that happened to be on a desk-top when western photographers were visiting.
That map was a threat, pure and simple. "This is what we have planned for you. You cannot survive." Russia has never hesitated to spill blood to get what it wants.
Why do you think Ukraine was either free or independent when the current government was installed in 2014 by Victoria Nuland & Co in a color revolution tied directly to Hunter Biden's dad?
All of those parties simply wanted to use the Ukrainian people (or Georgians, or Kazakhs, or Belorussians, or whoever is convenient) as a meat shield with which to provoke The Bear by tap dancing on red lines set decades ago.
I'm at a loss to see how responding to incessant Globohomo Uniparty Soros-funded, NATO-muscled provocation when it directly threatens The Bear's national security makes them the aggressor, especially when the only threat they pose is as a market leader in the European petroleum market.
I'd always thought that when the pencil-necked geek in the class pokes the big quiet guy in the corner in the ear period after period, day in and day out, for months on end, that we all kind of clap when he finally knocks that dork TF out.
One way to get rid of Putin is to stoke his ego, feed him a lot of misinformation, and let him make a mistake he can't back away from. While he may be somewhat isolated from the unwashed masses, most all he commands, including top advisors, know change will happen if Putin is out of the picture. While the entire mess may seem barbaric, a few thousand of people's lives have never meant much to many in Russia.
Clowns to the Left of me, Jokers to the right...
Man this's one 'middle' I'm clearly NOT digging.
I hope yer right about Putin "getting the noodle" sooner rather than later (if'n yer not familiar with the term, that's what Stalin used to refer to a small caliber bullet to the back of ye olde nugget)
In the immortal words of someone out there... may have been whatiznuts from the Mel Gibson movie: "I'm getting too old for this shit"
I mean hell, I dig Fallout 4 like any other geek but I sure as fuck didn't want to play it IRL.
@JT,
Zelensky assumed office in 2019. Life moves fast. Try and keep up.
The current admin there is not the bunch that Biden bamboozled into covering for Hunter.
And Ukraine has been free and independent ever since 1990 officially, and 2019 actually, when the Bear's puppet was pushed out of office by the people of Ukraine in an 80:20 landslide. If freedom in Ukraine threatens Russia's national security, fuck Russia. Sideways, with a rusty chainsaw. Period.
@BCE,
Agreed.
Putin is the jesus nut in this picture: remove him, and all this shitshow goes away in about 0.2 seconds. I have to figure that obvious reality is apparent over there, as much as it is over here. The Cuban Missile Crisis got Krushchev quietly but decisively shoved out a couple of years later, but I don't see the current crop of underlings being as patient nor accommodating, because there's no communism left for true believers.
They'll shoot him in the head, announce a heart attack or stroke ("stress from the ongoing conflict"), then announce his death the next day or so. Problem solved.
Distant chance they arrest him, but that turns into an embarrassing political shitshow, which is why I think they go for a medical excuse.
And I don't think anyone in his military command is seriously going to go to the mat and see their entire nation reduced to ashes over Ukraine, even if we sent in two squadrons of A-10s to mop up that entire column in an afternoon (though I hope Poopypants isn't stupid enough to do that, nor anything like it). Like Poopypants, I suspect TPTB are seriously questioning the sanity and stability of Putin, and quietly taking away the nuclear keys from his access.
Putin expires, Russia withdraws, nobody apologizes, but they take their lumps, and ukraine joins the EU, and probably NATO, or else receives enough military aid to amount to the same thing.
Putin massively miscalculated this time, and the payment for that failure has risen to the point that only his removal - to a coffin, most likely - will now suffice to solve the knot he's tied.
If he's got his underlings too cowed for that, this is going to widen, which is a recipe for sporky disasters far and wide, and a long-term open guerrilla war in Ukraine. If a couple of other unwilling republics decide the time is ripe, and things start popping in Georgia and elswhere, Vlad's gonna wish he'd bailed out last Saturday.
While Russia is, as far as I can tell, the aggressor here, and for that reason ought to lose, I don't want a resolution to the conflict that sees Ukraine joining NATO or the EU. Part of the whole reason for this was Putin's belief that Ukraine would do just that, and in the process become an obstacle to Russia's access to warm-water ports. Following through seems like a great way to guarantee this just blows up again in the future.
Does that fear of being cut off justify Russian invasion? No. Would Ukrainian membership in NATO be in some ways a just punishment for Putin's actions? Yes. But you simply cannot f*ck with Russian access to the sea. That's like the one constant of their history, going back to Peter the Great.
I think a guarantee of Ukrainian neutrality is the only way to secure long-term peace here.
1) Putin and Russia are the aggressor. Fuck what they want, even if it was rational two weeks ago. Criminals forfeit the right to reasonable requests.
2) Ukraine becoming a member of the EU is a done deal, if they survive. Becoming a NATO member too, with the same caveat, exactly because of this invasion.
Again, Putin's and Russia's fault. it was a distant prospect before the invasion, now it's a metaphysical certainty.
3) I say again, Fuck what Russia wants. They've just proven that even with full access to be treated unlike the fetal alcohol child locked in the basement they've been for 300 years, they simply cannot control their temper tantrums.
4) Given their capabilities, and present realities, should they survive intact, I expect Ukraine, and twenty other nations, will now become nuclear powers when the dust settles. Including every free nation from Singapore to South Korea, pointedly including Japan. Whether any of them say so or not, and even if that means making a few devices, and leaving them as the international equivalent of 80% receivers, ready to be snapped together at the last minute if the time comes, to avoid exactly what's facing Kiev right now.
5) The only last ditch method to contain this genie is likely Putin's head, on a platter, in the next 72 hours,and an immediate and total Russian withdrawal. If he survives to next Monday, and the sun doesn't get brighter at noon before then, start digging.
6) Even if that happens, EU and NATO membership are foregone conclusions.
The Cold War is baaaaaaaaaaack, either way.
Adjust mindsets accordingly.
Contrary to common beliefs, post-imperial Russia does not have any tradition of eliminating their leaders during international conflicts. Which is very rational and sane - who'd want to eliminate a poor leader and become a nominal looser himself, soon to be eliminated?
Now, I'm not saying that it's not gonna happen this time. Simply that if it does before Putin completes the takeover of as much of Ukraine as possible, it'd be an exception to the rule.
wojtek
Czar Nicolas and Lavrentiy Beria would like a few words with you about your understanding of the gentleness of power transitions in Moscow.
Also, how many of those leaders they didn't kill had nuclear weapons? And how many of them had just threatened to open the nuclear dance?
Asking for several billion friends and neighbors.
Maybe, just maybe Ukraine is looking to join Nato/ EU because they will do anything to keep out the nation that raped and murdered millions of their own people in the past few centuries, and worked hard to suppress and destroy their culture?
And isn't the Russian invasion kinda prove that Ukraine was right in wanting to be part of an organization meant to keep Russia in check, even wanting some nukes?
1) Czar Nicholas was a Russian emperor, so we're not counting him among the leaders of post-imperial Russia. I hope that's elementary?
2) More importantly, czar Nicholas was killed by the reds, not his own side.
3) Beria was Stalin's minion, who very briefly survived his master. And was eliminated in 1953 - 8 years after WW2 (which the soviets nearly lost, were it not for American aid). A perfect example for what I mentioned. And then you have: Khrushchev-Brezhnev transition (first attempt to remove Khrushchev for loosing his grip over the soviet world was in 1957 - well before the Cuban crisis), Gorbachev-Jelcyn transition (2 years after the collapse of the evil empire), and Jelcyn-Putin (3 years after the 1st Chechen war). No matter how you try to dress it, Russians for a long time have avoided eliminating their leaders during the peak of the conflict. Which actually makes a lot of sense, if you think about it.
Next time do your homework. Not for billions of people. Just for yourself.
wojtek
woj,
1) You haven't told me anything I didn't know already.
2) Whacking a Czar (and his entire family line) absolutely goes to the argument that power transitions in Russia are historically "wet".
3) Krushchev was allowed to retire, mainly because he acquiesced to all points, to give the impression he had chosen to do so. And he was under such scrutiny until he died that his memoirs had to be smuggled out, and only published after his death.
4) In between Gorby and Putin, you kind of left out that whole coup-against-Yeltsin thing, which featured a nationwide revolt, tanks shelling the Russian Assembly, etc. IIRC.
The Russians have a long and glorious tradition of giving their leaders the axe, with an actual axe.
Say, did you catch Lindsey Grahamnesty's remarks today?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egr1wUHUo8o
Aesop,
What I told you was not that Ruski likes to take out their failing leaders. That's common core knowledge. What I told you is that Ruski - for a long time now - has not been that stupid and did the removals after the war, not during. Reason for that being very simple: whomever takes over and signs the capitulation treaty is as good as gone themselves.
And make no mistake: if your or our military enters into Ukraine, each and every of these generals wouldn't even hesitate for a moment when pushing the red button. These are the people that invented the concept of "nuclear deescalation". (Of course you can afford to be cocky because their intention is to nuke us, as a warning to you.)
But yes, you definitely will have to explain to me how a call to assassinate the leader of the opposing side counts as "axing your own". If you want my opinion I think you are falling in love with simple solutions, where there aren't any. Only simplistic.
A not-so-simple solution out of this mess would be to convince Ukrainians to retreat whatever they can (military and civilian) and take positions along the Dnipro river, giving up east and south and asking for peace. Only then, after some armistice is signed, I can imagine a small palace revolt in Moscow or wherever Putin is now hiding. But that would require your government really wanting to end this war. Are you really sure that your government wants to end this war quickly?
wojtek
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