Posts by gentlerider7

Timothy Williams5 said:It’s quite clear when you step back to look at the big picture that the collapse of the USSR was ultimately driven by Gorbachev. 😁
One prosperous, wealthy nation, once held in high regard by all its neighbors, simply collapsed under its own weight, despite possessing a sophisticated communist framework and a powerhouse economy.
Heh.

That was exactly what Gorbachev was aiming for, though—trying to build this high-tech version of communism, only to have it fail spectacularly.

Medvedev just sat down for an interview with that French TV station LCI, and he's out here claiming that Russia actually stopped a global war from breaking out:

https://www-gazeta-ru.translate.goog..._x_tr_pto=wapp

So, during this chat with LCI, he was asked if humanity has already stumbled into a whole new world war, and his answer was pretty much a "not quite yet," though you can hear the cynicism dripping off him.

“I hope not, but for now, things are being kept under control,” he said. But then—because why not make everything more dramatic?—he goes off on a biblical tangent, bringing up the Revelation of John the Theologian and the whole Apocalypse thing, saying, “The first angel sounded his trumpet and there was battle and fire”—so, hey, at least the first angel blew the horn, right? But he claims the actual apocalypse hasn't arrived yet, and he’s hoping it stays that way.

According to him, all of Moscow's political maneuvering, including this whole special military operation, is supposedly designed specifically to prevent World War III from happening in the first place.

Medvedev also went on to argue that the military operation is tied directly to protecting what he calls Russia's vital interests, adding that as the deputy chairman of the Security Council, he believes if there wasn't a direct threat to Moscow's interests, they wouldn't have even started this.

“We could walk away from this operation right now if we wanted to,” he claimed. He mentioned that they tried talking to the Ukrainians, the Europeans, and the United States, too, but apparently, those talks went absolutely nowhere because nobody was listening to them.

Then, the deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation pivoted to blaming the escalation, basically saying Moscow was “forced” into ramping things up in Ukraine.

He argued that this entire armed conflict could have been avoided if the Ukrainian leadership had just "grown some backbone" and faced reality, claiming they shouldn't have spent eight years targeting their own people in Donetsk and Lugansk, which he says led to thousands of deaths among both Ukrainian and Russian citizens. He also pointed the finger at Ukraine's desire to join NATO and their statements about needing to rebuild their nuclear capabilities.

Straight from the Russian newspapers—the Chechen leader is basically saying all he needs is one shot at finishing this "special operation" and it'll be wrapped up in no time:

"The Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov claims he’s gone to the Russian President Vladimir Putin to ask for the green light to finally wrap up the special military operation. He was venting about it on his Telegram channel.

“I am asking, and I am seriously pleading with the commander-in-chief to just give us the chance to finish this special operation once and for all instead of dragging it out forever. Look, if 15% of the global community is against us, that doesn't mean the whole damn world is standing against us. We can deal with that 15% pretty quickly; it's absolutely no big deal,” he said.

Kadyrov also threw in that we've been "fighting our entire lives, so we know exactly what we're doing."

I lost the link, but here’s the gist from some news reports out of Russia—apparently ammo depots over in the Belgorod Oblast are blowing up because of some "lens effect" nonsense.

"The Governor of Belgorod announced that ammunition spontaneously ignited due to a 'lens effect'."

So, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the Governor of Belgorod Oblast, posted on his Telegram channel claiming that near the town of Timonov, some ammo just spontaneously combusted, and even the bomb squads couldn't get it under control after the warehouse fire started.

"Because of the intense heat—basically a lens effect kicking in—ammunition near the village of Timonov caught fire spontaneously, and our specialists haven't been able to neutralize it yet," the official wrote.

He went on to say that nobody was killed in the blast, but since they wanted to play it safe with the locals, the head of the Valuyki district organized transport to move everyone from the nearby areas over to the Krasnaya Polyana resort.

Richard Wilson4 said:Then you've got people at Pride parades sporting Che Guevara gear, even though the guy was a total racist and homophobic...

Look, maybe he was homophobic, sure, but even if you grant that he made some pretty questionable remarks about Black people back when he was in Cuba, the guy actually went to fight in the Congo alongside local revolutionaries, so I don't know if you can really pin "racism" as his defining characteristic. He was a radical leftist during an era when class struggle was basically the entire playbook for that movement, right?

Jessica Peterson2, have you actually sat down and read Dugin's Last War of the World Island yet?

Honestly, calling this anything like Chernobyl is a massive stretch

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/18/e...ntl/index.html

John Mearsheimer’s piece in "Foreign Affairs" is just recycling those same old tired arguments about how Ukraine joining NATO was the big trigger for this whole war:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukrai...g-fire-ukraine

"Contrary to the common wisdom found in the West, Moscow didn't invade Ukraine just to conquer it and make it part of Great Russia. Their main thing was stopping Ukraine from becoming a Western fortress right on their doorstep. Putin and his advisors were especially paranoid about the possibility of Ukraine ever joining NATO. Back in mid-January, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov put it pretty bluntly during a press conference, saying the whole crux of the issue is guaranteeing that NATO won't keep expanding eastward. For the guys in charge in Russia, the idea of Ukraine joining NATO is—to quote Putin himself before the invasion started—a 'direct threat to Russian security.' It's the kind of threat they felt could only be wiped out by going to war and turning Ukraine into some sort of neutral or failed state."

"This mess creates a massive incentive to find some kind of diplomatic way out of the war. But honestly? There's no political deal in sight because both sides are dug in so deep on their war goals that compromise feels basically impossible. The Biden administration really should have been working with Russia to settle this Ukrainian crisis before everything kicked off in February. Now, we're past the point of making a deal. Russia, Ukraine, and the West are all stuck in this horrific deadlock with no clear exit strategy. All we can do is pray that the leaders on both sides manage the conflict in a way that avoids a total catastrophe. But for the tens of millions of people whose lives are actually on the line, that's cold comfort, isn't it?"

Russian guy murders buddy over Ukraine dispute

https://www-gazeta-ru.translate.goog..._x_tr_pto=wapp

So, this whole tragedy went down on August 3rd. You’ve got these two guys just hanging out at a mutual friend's place, grabbing some drinks, minding their own business, right? Then, naturally, the conversation shifts to what the Russian military is doing over in Ukraine. Turns out, one of the guests is all about supporting the "special operation," while the host—the guy actually owning the place—is totally against it. Can you even imagine how fast things spiral when people start talking politics like that?

Well, things didn't just get heated; they turned deadly. The guy backing the military action grabbed a kitchen knife and just started stabbing his friend in the back, multiple times. The victim slumped onto the sofa, and the "friends" just... left. They just walked out.

Fast forward a few days, and the victim's wife finds his body. As for the attacker? He actually walked himself straight into the police station and confessed to everything. His excuse? He claims he didn't actually set out to kill his friend; he just couldn't stand the guy's "lack of patriotism." Like, seriously? Is that where we are now?

And if you want to see how deep this goes, recent polls suggest that about 60% of Russians actually support Putin's orders to attack Kyiv. It's just heavy stuff, man.

North Korean experts are heading into the Donetsk People's Republic...

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Donetsk People's Republic is currently in talks about getting builders from the DPR involved in rebuilding local infrastructure, according to Denis Pushilin. We're looking at a situation where the first wave of specialists from North Korea will be arriving on the ground very soon just to scope out how much work actually needs doing.
Pushilin pointed out that before all those Western sanctions hit North Korea, their construction crews were known for being top-tier professionals. Back on July 14th, he already hinted that we might see North Korean experts stepping up to help rebuild the Donbas.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPR is negotiating the involvement of construction crews—including those from North Korea—to help restore territory within the DPR.

Before the West slapped those sanctions on them, North Korea used to send their builders all over the world; they had a pretty established system. These North Korean crews are highly skilled, incredibly disciplined, and they consistently deliver solid results,”

- said Denis Pushilin, adding that a first group of experts from North Korea is expected to land in the DPR shortly to evaluate the scale of the reconstruction efforts."

Gregory Ramos3 said:But if we actually take a second to look closely at what was said, it doesn't even say "we won't do this," it just says it "doesn't need to be initiated" (like, they shouldn't do it).

It’s super vague about who would actually be pulling the trigger on it, but even so, he didn't totally rule out the possibility.

Feeling any better about it now? 😬

Look, this isn't some groundbreaking thing straight from Putin's mouth; he's just parroting the exact same stuff Reagan and Gorbachev said, plus what the Russians themselves were already whining about back in January.

Putin: In a nuclear war, nobody wins, and we should never pull that trigger

So, Vladimir Putin is out there claiming that in a nuclear war, there are absolutely no winners and we should never, ever start one. He dropped this whole line during a speech at a conference reviewing how the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is actually working, according to the Associated Press.

Like the president pointed out, Russia—being a party to the NPT and one of its key holders—is supposedly "consistently following both the letter and the spirit of the Treaty."

https://www-gazeta-ru.translate.goog..._x_tr_pto=wapp

Nancy Gomez26 said:Pure delusion fueled by an imperialist complex.

And honestly, their neighbors actually take them seriously? Like, really?

https://informer.us/planet/news/72...z-sergej-sojgu

Dmitry Peskov on "liberating" Russian cities

"When reporters pressed him on whether the Kremlin actually supports the liberation of Russian territories within Ukraine, Peskov just pivoted back to his usual script about purging Ukraine of neo-Nazi sentiments.

'The Kremlin supports the idea that Ukraine needs to be liberated from neo-Nazi feelings, and we have to take all the necessary steps through this special military operation to protect the people in the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics,' Peskov went on, basically explaining away the whole thing.

"Then you've got the President's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, weighing in on Senator Andrey Kishas' comments regarding the annexation of new territories during the fall parliamentary session. He was giving his take to the press.

'There’s nothing to report yet, but I’ll say this: the residents of those territories get to decide their own fate and speak for their own future—it’s entirely up to them,' he claimed, as if that settles everything.

https://www-gazeta-ru.translate.goog..._x_tr_pto=wapp

https://www-gazeta-ru.translate.goog..._x_tr_pto=wapp

So, Medvedev just dropped this hilarious map showing how he thinks Ukraine should be carved up.

So, apparently, the President of Uganda told Lavrov something along the lines of, "Look, we'll call out Russia when they mess up, but for now, just don't mess up," which is honestly such a wild thing to say, right?

Christian Torres3 said:I wouldn't say he's that stupid, though. He knows exactly how to play people, just like he used to lie to his own bosses. As a trained intelligence officer, he definitely knew they were lying to him, but he was likely expecting a situation similar to Georgia or the sanctions following Crimea. There's no way he dreamed that the USA would go 120% all-in on Ukraine.

And man, you saw the exact same thing playing out in our local news here. The night before the invasion even started, the morning papers were already running headlines claiming Kyiv would fall within three days if the military actually stepped foot in Ukraine.

Joshua Bishop3 said:The USA isn't the one at fault here—Russia is the one who invaded Ukraine. 😁

And then you've got people claiming the West is "to blame" because they’re sending weapons to help Ukraine defend itself, arguing that helping them fight back just drags the war out longer.

That logic is insane; it’s like a rapist claiming the victim is actually the guilty party for trying to fight back and resist, saying the whole thing could have been over already if she hadn't put up a fight.

Seriously, what kind of mental gymnastics do you have to perform to support Russia with those kinds of arguments? I honestly can't wrap my head around it.

From what I’ve gathered over on another subforum, there are even people out there who actually vibe with Dugin and Ilyushin’s whole philosophy, viewing all of this as some grand project to build a new traditional Christian civilization led by Russia.

Kate Cook27 said:Exactly. Except there aren't any American interests to speak of in Putin's playbook—since, you know, America doesn't exist either.

Look, there are plenty of people out there who are just—well, selfish, plain and simple. They couldn't care less about anything happening outside their own little backyard, you know? But honestly, besides being totally self-centered, isn't that just incredibly short-sighted too?

Kate Cook27 said:And honestly? You can see folks right here who still buy into it.

Man, it’s always the ones who didn't finish school that fall for it, isn't it? But honestly, the absolute worst are the ones preaching about "national interests" while they're busy swallowing Putin's propaganda whole.