I have explicitly said that these claims you make are from uncritically-assessed tweets you post. I know they are not your tweets. My point is this: if tomorrow I see a tweet that says "The earth is flat!", I will not retweet that post, because I have the intellectual capacity to know that it is not true, and retweeting it would only contribute to the sum total of stupidity in the world. You however do not have that intellectual capacity, hence all the absolute shite you retweet on here. Hiding behind "It's not my tweet!" doesn't cut it. In this post-truth Trumpian social media world of ours you need to be responsible for what you help propagate (you who claim to be so opposed to the dissemination of nonsense propaganda). If you had any aсtual understanding of this war then you would know not to give the garbage you post on here the unwarranted oxygen of a retweet. You don't, so you don't.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
- Thread starter Wednesday at Stoke
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I have explicitly said that these claims you make are from uncritically-assessed tweets you post. I know they are not your tweets. My point is this: if tomorrow I see a tweet that says "The earth is flat!", I will not retweet that post, because I have the intellectual capacity to know that it is not true, and retweeting it would only contribute to the sum total of stupidity in the world. You however do not have that intellectual capacity, hence all the absolute shite you retweet on here. Hiding behind "It's not my tweet!" doesn't cut it. In this post-truth Trumpian social media world of ours you need to be responsible for what you help propagate (you who claim to be so opposed to the dissemination of nonsense propaganda). If you had any aсtual understanding of this war then you would know not to give the garbage you post on here the unwarranted oxygen of a retweet. You don't, so you don't.
I think Ben Stiller will save the day!
I’ve not being following this thread that closely so have to ask: are you Russian Dt12?
If not, are you a supporter of russias invasion of Ukraine?
If not, are you a supporter of russias invasion of Ukraine?
The difference is that Lysychansk is on the other side of the Siverskyi Donets river so it will be much harder for the Russians to storm and take this position. The only way this may occur is if they can complete the encirclement of the Luhansk region but they haven't yet been able to do this. Instead they are massing artillery attacks and pushing Ukrainian forces back in a front on approach. This means that they haven't defeated the Ukrainian army in the field as UKR forces are able to continue to trade space for time in an organized fashion.
You have cited tweets from elsewhere (without quoting them) and then have mis-represented them in order to try and lend credence to your claims - e.g. (as of nearly 3 weeks ago) that the entire Luhansk region will fall inside 2 weeks.
Whereas if I post a reference to a tweet, the actual tweet is included (and not my preferred version of it). Moreover, the particular tweet that I referenced that you seem to be obsessed about came from someone with a lot of followers, which would suggest that their view was at least worthy of consideration, regardless that it later proved to be wrong.
I consider the vast majority of any tweets that I've cited to be relevant, interesting and worthwhile additions to the discussion. If you don't, then too bad ... you can always fall back on comforting Russian propaganda, which, as I recall, claimed that Russian forces had taken Severodonetsk several weeks ago.
I don't think it is allowed here to be pro Russian.
Sure it is, but they should expect to be ridiculed and vilified.
I have to admit I'm going back and forth on this in my head. On the one hand, it's meaningful, as candidate status gives Ukraine and Moldova a credible path to EU membership, while without that status, you've got nothing.
On the other hand, that credible path can be very steep, or otherwise so problematic that it's basically another kind of limbo. (I gave the examples of Turkey and Serbia before.) In which case this is nothing but hollow symbolism.
On the third hand (getting into anatomical issues here), the truly problematic candidate situations are currently either due to opposition (Serbia and Turkey aren't really working on getting closer to membership) or relationships between countries. (North Macedonia was first blocked by Greece, now by Bulgaria; Kosovo's independence isn't recognized by a few countries, etc. - as it happens there was an overview article about exactly this subject in my Dutch newspaper today.
) Ukraine and Moldova are both unlikely to get into that kind of situation.But on yet another hand (sorry, lost count), Ukraine and Moldova have a huge climb ahead of them to meet the membership criteria, and both territorial conflicts (Russia, Transnistria) that won't just go away.
So yeah, lots of ways to look at this. Ultimately, I think I do agree it is largely symbolic - but with a real (if far-off) benefit behind it.
As I said, I appreciate the perspective you bring to the thread, but I don't get why you have to be so hostile to others. Glaston isn't treating you this way, but you keep making it very ad hominem to him in particular, with all kinds of low blows. If you really can't stand him, just put him on ignore. Otherwise I can easily see you end up with some warnings. (And not because of your views.)
Well I will say reading @GlastonSpur earlier tweets you'd think Ukraine was surrounding Moscow but it's tough to follow this war.
I'm always suspicious of media especially in the age of Twitter so I never really believed the Russians were suffering as much losses as proposed. Was hard to imagine an army of that size struggling.
but it turns out that was all true. So for me anyway, the first reports are just not worth getting into and the situation clears after a few weeks usually.
I'm always suspicious of media especially in the age of Twitter so I never really believed the Russians were suffering as much losses as proposed. Was hard to imagine an army of that size struggling.
but it turns out that was all true. So for me anyway, the first reports are just not worth getting into and the situation clears after a few weeks usually.
Has already been discussed ad nauseam in the Geopolitics thread. The likes of Mearschimer and now Walt, are the bread and butter among Putin apologists, which is not coincidentally why they cite them every 10 minutes.
I have to admit I'm going back and forth on this in my head. On the one hand, it's meaningful, as candidate status gives Ukraine and Moldova a credible path to EU membership, while without that status, you've got nothing.
On the other hand, that credible path can be very steep, or otherwise so problematic that it's basically another kind of limbo. (I gave the examples of Turkey and Serbia before.) In which case this is nothing but hollow symbolism.
On the third hand (getting into anatomical issues here), the truly problematic candidate situations are currently either due to opposition (Serbia and Turkey aren't really working on getting closer to membership) or relationships between countries. (North Macedonia was first blocked by Greece, now by Bulgaria; Kosovo's independence isn't recognized by a few countries, etc. - as it happens there was an overview article about exactly this subject in my Dutch newspaper today.
But on yet another hand (sorry, lost count), Ukraine and Moldova have a huge climb ahead of them to meet the membership criteria, and both territorial conflicts (Russia, Transnistria) that won't just go away.
So yeah, lots of ways to look at this. Ultimately, I think I do agree it is largely symbolic - but with a real (if far-off) benefit behind it.
Four hands, you're a long equation from being mistaken for an economist.
Russian air defence missile finally found some nazis to kill.
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What's funny?
Of course you can be pro-Russia. You just can't expect to get applause for an unpopular position. And you have to expect opposition. How about in a Serbian or Russian football forum? Are people more open to other opinions there?
The question is do you?
It is clear from your posts that you are in the defeatist camp. That's fair enough, there are defeatists in every struggle and some times they are right. As to whether you have any particular insight into the war I'm not so sure because defeatists so far have been proven wrong repeatedly in their predictions.
If you want a decent discussion, then it would help if you had the integrity to admit when your predictions prove factually wrong. You did predict defeat in Donbas by the now and it is clear that hasn't happened yet. Whether an eventual Russian success there would prove a wider contention that Ukraine has lost is understandably contentious. I wouldn't predict with any certainty the eventual outcome there or draw the conclusion that such a defeat for Ukraine was game over.
I thought at the start that Ukraine would turn into a bear trap for Russia and it has. The quick win reinstating Russian influence and fracturing the west hasn't happened and Russia is struggling to keep up an offensive capability on a scale that it needs too.
An eventual defeat of Ukrainian forces following a collapse is still possible but much less likely now than at the start of the war.
A collapse of Russian forces has already happened on several fronts. Whether a more general/total collapse is ahead is very difficult to predict because is will only come at the point of exhaustion. If the defeatists were always right then Verdun would be on the Franco German border for example. In wars the aggressor generally gains territory at first. Victory looks certain and the profits of doom abound. Then things change. It is looking like Ukraine is fighting Russia to a stand still. It might be we are in an Iran/Iraq war situation.
Or after stalling in offense and being worn down by attrition and growing Ukrainian capability brought on by western military support, Ukrainians could turn the tables and win back their country.
The people who predicted this war were saying at the time that Russia could sustain a fight for around six months ( longer if they go for general mobilization). Meanwhile we are 4 months into the two week special operation so we will see what we will see.
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I hope these things will help take out Russian artillery. Are their range meant to be longer than whatever the Russians are using?
Yeh, as an example, one of the difficulties of taking Kherson city back is all the open fields surrounding it that makes UA forces very vunerable as they move forward to all the the mass artillery stationed relatively safely on the other side of the Dnipro river. That will also no doubt begin to level the city if/when UA makes significant inroads there.
If I has to guess, I reckon all these himars have gone straight to that front.
It never fails.
TMDaines is not someone I would say this about in this thread. A very valuable contributor to it.
Yes, I think I do. I know, for example, that this war did not begin on February 24th 2022. I know that if you go to Victoria "F*ck the EU" Nuland's Wikipedia page (I don't know how to post images here), you will see that the 2nd picture on the right was taken on February 1st 2014...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Nuland
It shows her (the architect of Euromaidan) and John Kerry sitting opposite Petro Poroshenko, Arseniy Yatesenyuk and Vitaliy Klitschko (notice how the 3 Ukrainians have their heads dutifully bowed, not even any pens and paper in front of them, while their American handlers are giving them their orders). And then, almost 4 months later, by an absolutely startling coincidence, 'the Ukrainian people' "democratically elected" Petro Poroshenko to be their president, Arseniy Yatsenyuk to be their Prime Minister, and Vitali Klitschko to be the mayor of Kiev (amazing how often America perfectly predicts who is going to win 'free and fair elections' months in advance isn't it?).
I know that Poroshenko's successor (the West's new Winston Churchill) is a project of Ihor Kolomoiskiy (the founder and main sponsor of Azov Battalion). Someone asked me earlier in the thread why I always put the name 'Zelenskiy' in quotes when referring to policy. It's because he is nobody in this situation. He makes no decisions and has no input on anything that matters. His only 2 orders from his handlers in Washington and London are: 1) never, under any circumstances, and no matter how much pressure you find yourself under, remove your little green military T-shirt. And 2) never, we repeat NEVER, shave off your little beard. You are a warrior. You are a fighter. You are our new Action Man figure.
Oh yeah, and I know that the new paragon of Western values is as corrupt as they come:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...dent-offshore-connections-volodymyr-zelenskiy
So yeah, I know that this is not a fight between autocracy and democracy, it is an incredibly complex situation that gets reduced to "good v evil and that's all there is to it!" for a dumb mass audience whose reading ability extends no further than a tweet thread.
Further, I know that most of the people in this thread who are salivating at the thought of all these new lovely weapons coming to Ukraine are doing so not because they care about Ukraine but because this war is a video game to them. It's entertainment (on more than one occasion I've wanted to post the link to donate to Ukraine to see who puts their money where their mouth is). Their support of America's and the UK's strategy of "let the Ukrainians die as slowly as possible so as to weaken Russia as much as possible" is not out of concern for Ukrainians, it's out of concern for having more and more war to watch.
I know that the EU did not prepare for the possibility of this war dragging on the way that it has, and this is going to cost them a catastrophic amount. The EU was extremely bold and aggressive in their sanctions against Russia, believing (they directly stated this) that it would cripple the Russian economy and therefore the Russian war machine within 3 months. A minor timing issue with disastrous consequences. Now they are in a position where they cannot admit the sanctions are not working and so are just going to keep on driving over the cliff, with unelected morons (von der Leyen, Borrell, Michel et al) doing the driving. They'll be fine, they'll parachute out of it all in a couple of years and retire to their Swiss lakes, hell they may even hook up with Kolomoiyskiy and Zelenskiy while they're there. Russia never said this war would be over in days, weeks or months. They gave no timeline. It was THE WEST that gave timelines, based on famously and repeatedly bad analysis (remember when the same people predicted the Afghan army would hold off the Taliban for more than 6 days?). It is not Russia who miscalculated the timeline of this war, it is the West, which is why they are now crippling themselves economically. Their massive sanctions were based on the premise that it would be over by now. They did not foresee Ukraine needing 10 billion dollars a month (and rising) only to stay afloat.
Finally, I know that for every post you can find from Ukrainians who are not actually fighting the war saying that they have all the people and 'will' needed to fight if only they get WEAPONS WEAPONS WEAPONS!, you can find a hundred more from Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 who are desperate for 'Zelenskiy' to lift the ban on their fleeing the country (if Ukrainians are so ready and willing to die for the West's freedom, why have all Ukrainian men been forbidden from leaving the country since February 25th?). Last week 'Zelenskiy' told Poland to send back any men aged 18 to 60 who fled as refugees by June 27th. His plan is to put guns in their hands and send them to "die for the world's freedom".
Those are the things I know. What I believe (but naturally don't know) is that Ukraine can't win this war. Everyone (Johnson mainly) who says they can refuses to define 'win' in this context. Pushing Russia out of Donbas and/or Crimea? It will never happen, and they know it. "Destroying the Russian army" as Kasparov said in that tweet posted yesterday? Idiotic. Ukraine's fully mobilised army is being decimated by Russia's peacetime army. I also believe that Putin has no intention of invading any other country. He explicitly stated his aims in his speech before the invasion. "If we cede territory to Putin now, he will come for Poland next!" is absolutely divorced from any kind of understanding of WHY Putin invaded Ukraine in the first place ("Because he hates democracy!" - idiotic understanding of this war).
Zelenskiy''s handlers in DC and London need to send him to the negotiating table now. Otherwise, all that will happen from here on is more dead Ukrainians, more dead 'orcs', more of an economically crippled EU, more Boris Johnson pretending to care about Ukrainians (he doesn't, he needs a geopolitical friend because he has none), and more of the West stupidly pushing one stated rival (Russia) further and further into the arms of their other stated rival (China).
I've said my piece. Back to the tweets of what weapons are being sent alongside salivating emojis. But before I go, here is the link to donate to Ukrainians:
https://donate.unhcr.org/int/en/ukraine-emergency
Frankly I don't know how anyone can spend a week sunning themselves on a Greek island when Ukrainians are dying for your freedom. That money could have helped so many Ukrainians.
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Yeah Putin's been fecking with our democracies for years mate - quite successfully. The idea that being his friend is a good thing is not something I'm ever going to believe. He's a baddie, and a really fecking bad one at that. Stalin bad. All of these puppet masters in the US who can't even control their own elections have magically mind controlled all of the Ukrainian populus purely because they hate Russia for absolutely no reason, seems legit.
What do you say to this DT12?
They always want to start at Euromaidan when the truth is, that was is the culmination of failed Russian foreign policy in Ukraine dating back to the Kremlin's desire to overturn Ukrainian independence. Independence Russia had guaranteed ironically. Putin has stated it quite clearly. Ukraine should never have been allowed to be a nation. The rest is semantics and propaganda.
To pretend that the justification for this invasion was corruption when Russia more than anyone is responsible for that corruption is laughable.
Or the first invasion was because of Nazis when Putin is actually a Nazi.
Just one of many of Putin's buddies whom the US and UK are not fully sanctioning because they profit off him. Like when the USA refused to sanction Abramovich because he's a big employer over there...
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/04/business/colorado-steel-plant-russia-military-invs/index.html
Or how America is continuing to do business with all the precious metals and rare gases oligarchs because they need them (while also calling on Europe to commit economic suicide by rejecting oil and gas, things which the US does not need from Russia). It's why in my very first post on here I said that a good question the EU needs to be asking themselves is this: what would the US do in our situation? And the answer is: absolutely not this.
First of all it was a working holiday, secondly you've no idea what I do or don't do with my money in relation to Ukraine, thirdly it's none of your goddam business, and fourthly your post is a cheap shot that has no place in this (or any other) thread.
I'd suggest that you quit being an absolute tosser.
Jesus. Well you did say you are based in St. Petersburg, I believe that much at least, its where most the troll farms were set up.And yet still no admission your prediction was wrong
Imagine that, Ukrainians are fighting against a peacetime army which invaded their country and only means good and wants good for Ukraine instead of throwing weapons and welcoming their peacetime friends. And they want more weapons to defend their country. The cheek! How dare they.
Oh and Russia didnt give the timeline for the war. That's so polite from them. Look, we're invade a country, wont call it a war but a special operation and wont give a timeline unlike evil west, we're take it one day at a time of bombing and killing, dont worry. Oh and western countries and all over the world, please let us invade Ukraine and dont be mean by giving Ukraine the weapons, dont you dare! We'll just decimate and destroy Ukraine and we're good after that, Putin said so.
Oh and Putin said he wont invade any other country (and for invading Ukraine he has good reasons according to you). Good then. You believe him, he's not a baddy.
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Great to hear they've adjusted their background music from that Benny Benasi track to 80s arcade games.
I see that you keep pushing the Kremlin's propaganda and are ignorant of basic economics.
The EU's GDP in 2020 was estimated by the Word Bank to be more than 10 times that of Russia in the same year. To put this another way, the EU can absorb financial costs to a far greater degree than Russia.
The World Bank now projects Russia GDP to decline by 8.9% this year, whilst EU GDP is forecast to grow, albeit at a slower rate than before the war started.
So your description of the economic consequences for the EU as "catastrophic" is wide of the mark. That description should be applied instead to economic consequences for Russia.
I said that Donbas would fall to Russia by the end of June. It's unlikely to happen by then. Nevertheless Donbas falling sooner rather than later is looking inevitable. So my prediction of the timing was wrong. My prediction of the eventual outcome was not, in my opinion (and frankly, in everyone's opinion whose name is not Boris or Liz). So I admit to being wrong in my prediction about the end of June. Now then, would you like me to show you some posts from earlier in this thread about how the Russian army would collapse in weeks? Or that Putin's dying of everything from cancer to ebola? You've scored a great victory with my being off about the timing of Donbas capitulating, but while you're laughing about it, more Ukrainians are going to senselessly die because certain actors (!) have convinced you that they stand a chance of winning, so be prepared to go poorer while the usual suspects get vastly wealthier. I don't know if you're from an EU country mate but if you are I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: the US and the UK are absolutely laughing their arses off at what you're doing to yourselves right now.And yet still no admission your prediction was wrong
So, DT12 posts basically say that Ukrainians are puppets of the Americans and the Russians invaded Ukraine in order to liberate the Ukrainians from the Americans? Or else kill those who do not want to be liberated. Because if they don't want to be liberated by Russians, then obviously they are brainwashed by Americans to think they are not Russians and they should die.
In other words, basically Ukraine is currently populated by two kinds of people: Russians living in Ukraine who want Russia to win, and brainwashed nazis who the puppets of Americans like the Nazi-Jew Zelenskyy.
Did I get this correctly?
In other words, basically Ukraine is currently populated by two kinds of people: Russians living in Ukraine who want Russia to win, and brainwashed nazis who the puppets of Americans like the Nazi-Jew Zelenskyy.
Did I get this correctly?