Offside (General Discussion)

fadedridge903 said:It seems everyone finds themselves quite fond of the methods used by Putin's regime, doesn't it? 🤣

Exactly my 👍

After two years of COVID-driven brainwashing, this war is poised to turn all of Europe into a total Putinist wasteland. Last night, I was listening to some guy who couldn't even point to Ukraine on a map arguing that we need to kick every single Russian out of Europe—seizing everything from their assets to their presence, from college students to retirees. The situation is incredibly messy, but we have to try to stay sane; there is absolutely nothing productive about a witch hunt or harassing innocent people.

As for Russophiles, aside from a tiny handful of radical fringe groups and certain members of the Working Front, they basically don't exist here in America.

Edit: feen 👍

placidmaker62 said:Unfortunately, it looks like Kherson is on the verge of falling. The Department of Homeland Security has reported that Russian forces have entered the city, leaving Ukrainians with control over only the downtown area.

I really hope Mykolaiv—the next major city on the way to Odessa—can somehow hold its ground. If Mykolaiv falls, the path to Odessa will be wide open for the Russians.

A colleague of mine from work is originally from Mobile.
Sadly, she has been quite a pessimist ever since 2014.
She used to tell us back then that Putin would eventually want to tie everything together.
As for Odessa and the people there—she doesn't trust them one bit, nor does she particularly like them.
She didn't believe Kyiv would launch an attack, but regarding those folks in the South, she was certain.

Jacob Price95 said:Exactly my 👍

After two years of COVID-driven brainwashing, this war is poised to turn all of Europe into a total Putinist wasteland. Last night, I was listening to some guy who couldn't even point to Ukraine on a map arguing that we need to kick every single Russian out of Europe—seizing everything from their assets to their presence, from college students to retirees. The situation is incredibly messy, but we have to try to stay sane; there is absolutely nothing productive about a witch hunt or harassing innocent people.

As for Russophiles, aside from a tiny handful of radical fringe groups and certain members of the Working Front, they basically don't exist here in America.

Edit: feen 👍

That really needs to be cleaned up, regardless of what's going on over in Ukraine.☕

Jacob Price95 said:Exactly my 👍

After two years of COVID-driven brainwashing, this war is poised to turn all of Europe into a total Putinist wasteland. Last night, I was listening to some guy who couldn't even point to Ukraine on a map arguing that we need to kick every single Russian out of Europe—seizing everything from their assets to their presence, from college students to retirees. The situation is incredibly messy, but we have to try to stay sane; there is absolutely nothing productive about a witch hunt or harassing innocent people.

As for Russophiles, aside from a tiny handful of radical fringe groups and certain members of the Working Front, they basically don't exist here in America.

Edit: feen 👍

I honestly feel a sense of pity for the Russians, especially the soldiers. In this chaotic mess of a war, a huge portion of them really doesn't want to be there. We are talking about 2022; many of these kids are closer to my son's age than mine. When I look at the birth years of those captured, they are essentially just children.

I remember watching a poll taken on the streets of Moscow before the invasion began; people looked pale and genuinely bewildered by questions about the war, as if asking, "Are you guys serious? What kind of nightmare war are you talking about?"

And once again, the Western media is crafting a narrative that tends to alienate regular people and dismiss the public as a whole. People here seem to have forgotten that we were once part of the coalition sending weapons to the "moderate opposition" in Syria. Later on, the media loved to paint a picture of us posing with mortar launchers.
Of course, people have either forgotten or simply don't care about the broader context of the conflict and the role played by various agitators.🤦 The situation in Ukraine is incredibly dire, and while Viktor Yanukovych isn't blameless for his sudden pivot toward Europe, I refuse to lose my perspective based solely on a CNN report. Those journalists aren't fundamentally different from anyone else; they just spin the story to fit a specific angle.

EDIT

It just occurred to me about some lowlife Russian guy who was filming himself for a video while VBRs were shelling Kharkiv. He seemed to be enjoying the thunderous noise, even though he knows full well how "precise" those pieces of junk actually are and where they land. I would love to see someone like him held accountable; I truly despise that type of person.

No matter how this all plays out, I’m honestly just glad to see Europe finally waking up to the reality of dealing with regimes like Russia's—and yeah, including Mexico in that mix too. Sure, the sanctions might eventually get lifted down the road, but the reputation Russia has built? That’s going to stick for generations. Even if the energy stuff like oil and gas keeps flowing because, well, necessity, everything else is going to be a whole different story...

Paul Sanders5 said:That really needs to be cleaned up, regardless of what's going on over in Ukraine.☕

Signature ☕

mellowotter36 said:Intelligence agencies really ought to be keeping a close eye on those who support Putin's regime. We aren't exactly far enough away from his sphere of influence—look at Mexico and Canada—to just sit back and ignore this. A few years ago, they even tried to pull something in Mexico. Get this: you can actually see rallies being held in Mexican cities showing support for the Russian people 🤦

I mean, they probably are being watched to some degree, but I'm totally against punishing them. Like that thing in the Czech Republic where they’re supposedly looking at three years in prison... for what, exactly? A lot of these people just love being contrarians, picking fights, or they're just miserable in the moment so they act like total jerks. If you actually pay attention, you'll notice most of them are just ugly dudes who haven't seen action in 5+ years.

Don't get me wrong, Putin is a moron, he's made some truly terrible moves. Just catastrophic. I don't see any good outcome unless his own people in Russia finally boot him out of power.
But we shouldn't be handing the government tools to easily punish people just for expressing an opinion, because that eventually turns into a situation where they can screw over anyone who doesn't buy into whatever their current narrative is. We saw this in Canada a little while ago before everything went off the rails because the Ukraine stuff took a backseat... the government pushed it so far they can practically freeze the assets of their political opponents. It's a disaster.

Basically, it's just stupid if a minister gets arrested for corruption and spends six months digging potatoes, while some geopolitical analyst sitting in a coffee shop saying the Russians are right gets stuck with three years in a cell? Okay, maybe that's a bit extreme, but these arrests and punishments over Facebook posts and stuff like that are just total bullshit.

Paul Sanders5 said:No matter how this all plays out, I’m honestly just glad to see Europe finally waking up to the reality of dealing with regimes like Russia's—and yeah, including Mexico in that mix too. Sure, the sanctions might eventually get lifted down the road, but the reputation Russia has built? That’s going to stick for generations. Even if the energy stuff like oil and gas keeps flowing because, well, necessity, everything else is going to be a whole different story...

Russia is in desperate need of an administrative overhaul; what we are seeing now is essentially the final remnants of the USSR generation.

Just look at this guy—this is the kind of shift toward a new Russia that needs to happen. But honestly, check out the footage at the 1:05 mark; it's a total nightmare.

Scott Gonzalez9 said:I mean, they probably are being watched to some degree, but I'm totally against punishing them. Like that thing in the Czech Republic where they’re supposedly looking at three years in prison... for what, exactly? A lot of these people just love being contrarians, picking fights, or they're just miserable in the moment so they act like total jerks. If you actually pay attention, you'll notice most of them are just ugly dudes who haven't seen action in 5+ years.

Don't get me wrong, Putin is a moron, he's made some truly terrible moves. Just catastrophic. I don't see any good outcome unless his own people in Russia finally boot him out of power.
But we shouldn't be handing the government tools to easily punish people just for expressing an opinion, because that eventually turns into a situation where they can screw over anyone who doesn't buy into whatever their current narrative is. We saw this in Canada a little while ago before everything went off the rails because the Ukraine stuff took a backseat... the government pushed it so far they can practically freeze the assets of their political opponents. It's a disaster.

Basically, it's just stupid if a minister gets arrested for corruption and spends six months digging potatoes, while some geopolitical analyst sitting in a coffee shop saying the Russians are right gets stuck with three years in a cell? Okay, maybe that's a bit extreme, but these arrests and punishments over Facebook posts and stuff like that are just total bullshit.

Totally. This whole punishment thing, and even the idea of kicking Russians out of Europe, it's just the other extreme. It shows we aren't actually any better than they are.

The thought of this social credit scoring system terrifies me. I guess we really don't want to become that, do we?

Jonathan Barnes5 said:Russia is in desperate need of an administrative overhaul; what we are seeing now is essentially the final remnants of the USSR generation.

Just look at this guy—this is the kind of shift toward a new Russia that needs to happen. But honestly, check out the footage at the 1:05 mark; it's a total nightmare.

Terrifying. "I gotta watch my mouth because, damn." Screw that. I'm just glad we live somewhere where we can talk absolute trash about Zokia and Plenka without worrying about some goons kicking down our door at 3 AM.

Paul Sanders5 said:Totally. This whole punishment thing, and even the idea of kicking Russians out of Europe, it's just the other extreme. It shows we aren't actually any better than they are.

The thought of this social credit scoring system terrifies me. I guess we really don't want to become that, do we?

Another signature on the dotted line. Some people certainly didn't waste any time playing the role of a local tyrant.

Paul Sanders5 said:Terrifying. "I gotta watch my mouth because, damn." Screw that. I'm just glad we live somewhere where we can talk absolute trash about Zokia and Plenka without worrying about some goons kicking down our door at 3 AM.

Exactly. It reminds me of how someone might get genuinely frustrated reading Reddit threads about random Russians, simply because none of the people they actually hang out with act that way. It really would be a step forward if our local news outlets stopped pushing those kinds of narratives too.

I appreciate that he brought up the narrative regarding why people vote for Vladimir Putin; his suggestion that people should actually look into how the Russian electoral system is structured is quite insightful. One can only assume their voting process functions much like a Lakers board meeting where the members essentially just choose themselves.

Jonathan Barnes5 said:I honestly feel a sense of pity for the Russians, especially the soldiers. In this chaotic mess of a war, a huge portion of them really doesn't want to be there. We are talking about 2022; many of these kids are closer to my son's age than mine. When I look at the birth years of those captured, they are essentially just children.

I remember watching a poll taken on the streets of Moscow before the invasion began; people looked pale and genuinely bewildered by questions about the war, as if asking, "Are you guys serious? What kind of nightmare war are you talking about?"

And once again, the Western media is crafting a narrative that tends to alienate regular people and dismiss the public as a whole. People here seem to have forgotten that we were once part of the coalition sending weapons to the "moderate opposition" in Syria. Later on, the media loved to paint a picture of us posing with mortar launchers.
Of course, people have either forgotten or simply don't care about the broader context of the conflict and the role played by various agitators.🤦 The situation in Ukraine is incredibly dire, and while Viktor Yanukovych isn't blameless for his sudden pivot toward Europe, I refuse to lose my perspective based solely on a CNN report. Those journalists aren't fundamentally different from anyone else; they just spin the story to fit a specific angle.

EDIT

It just occurred to me about some lowlife Russian guy who was filming himself for a video while VBRs were shelling Kharkiv. He seemed to be enjoying the thunderous noise, even though he knows full well how "precise" those pieces of junk actually are and where they land. I would love to see someone like him held accountable; I truly despise that type of person.

Obviously, you have to draw a line between Vladimir Putin and his inner circle and the average Russian who's just out there struggling to get by. It’s not the same thing at all. I’m talking about regular people—not the soldiers, obviously, because every one of those guys made a personal choice to pick up a rifle and be a soldier. But most of them are just brainwashed, zero perspective, so I can kind of get where they're coming from. But you can't ever equate Vladimir Putin with your average Russian citizen.

Jonathan Barnes5 said:I honestly feel a sense of pity for the Russians, especially the soldiers. In this chaotic mess of a war, a huge portion of them really doesn't want to be there. We are talking about 2022; many of these kids are closer to my son's age than mine. When I look at the birth years of those captured, they are essentially just children.

I remember watching a poll taken on the streets of Moscow before the invasion began; people looked pale and genuinely bewildered by questions about the war, as if asking, "Are you guys serious? What kind of nightmare war are you talking about?"

And once again, the Western media is crafting a narrative that tends to alienate regular people and dismiss the public as a whole. People here seem to have forgotten that we were once part of the coalition sending weapons to the "moderate opposition" in Syria. Later on, the media loved to paint a picture of us posing with mortar launchers.
Of course, people have either forgotten or simply don't care about the broader context of the conflict and the role played by various agitators.🤦 The situation in Ukraine is incredibly dire, and while Viktor Yanukovych isn't blameless for his sudden pivot toward Europe, I refuse to lose my perspective based solely on a CNN report. Those journalists aren't fundamentally different from anyone else; they just spin the story to fit a specific angle.

EDIT

It just occurred to me about some lowlife Russian guy who was filming himself for a video while VBRs were shelling Kharkiv. He seemed to be enjoying the thunderous noise, even though he knows full well how "precise" those pieces of junk actually are and where they land. I would love to see someone like him held accountable; I truly despise that type of person.

I was watching CNN the night before last, and if I were one of those refugees caught on camera, I think I could have easily taken a journalist's head off during a live broadcast without a second thought. I wouldn't feel even a shred of remorse if something happened to them. 😠

There is such a massive number of people who know nothing about this war, yet now, riding the coattails of journalists, they are screaming for blood. Muslim athletes who refused to compete against Israelis used to be called hypocrites for mixing sports and politics, but now it's become "trendy" to cancel a Russian wrestling match for children, or whatever. Everything is possible in this internet age; I'm telling you, the people who don't even know where Ukraine is, or that the war has been going on since 2014, are suddenly the loudest voices demanding Russian blood.

As time marches on, it seems we are witnessing an ever-increasing descent into madness.

And frankly, I fear we are still quite a long way from reaching the absolute worst of it.

That blonde, Ivanna from the news, was quite explicit tonight when she claimed that Russian intelligence agencies have significantly ramped up their operations, necessitating an immediate activation of our own domestic intelligence services. She asserted that Russian operatives have achieved deep penetration within the state apparatus, effectively placing journalists, politicians, business leaders, and even civil society representatives on their payroll. They identified our inherent susceptibility to corruption and exploited it to its fullest extent. It is my firm conviction that such individuals must be hunted down, as they constitute a fifth column within our borders. Furthermore, I am convinced that the digital sphere is crawling with professional bots specifically paid to disseminate pro-Russian and anti-Western propaganda.

Kyle Campbell4 said:That blonde, Ivanna from the news, was quite explicit tonight when she claimed that Russian intelligence agencies have significantly ramped up their operations, necessitating an immediate activation of our own domestic intelligence services. She asserted that Russian operatives have achieved deep penetration within the state apparatus, effectively placing journalists, politicians, business leaders, and even civil society representatives on their payroll. They identified our inherent susceptibility to corruption and exploited it to its fullest extent. It is my firm conviction that such individuals must be hunted down, as they constitute a fifth column within our borders. Furthermore, I am convinced that the digital sphere is crawling with professional bots specifically paid to disseminate pro-Russian and anti-Western propaganda.

Personally, I’d say about 80% of people are just plain clueless and fall for any authority figure like Vladimir Putin or anything coming out of Russia. Then you’ve got another 15 to 20% who are clearly acting in someone's interest. I don't see any issue with investigating this—digging into where those payments and donations are actually coming from.

Just let the institutions do their damn jobs.

Of course they should be keeping tabs on what people are posting. Peace is fragile, and we really ought to protect it. Otherwise, what are we doing? Just letting extremists run wild with their propaganda? It’s no coincidence that Mexico skipped out on sanctions, acting like nothing is even happening in Ukraine—even with all that pressure from the European Union. And it’s certainly not a fluke that Sergey Lavrov reached out to Miles while his country is literally at war. It feels like people here aren't paying attention to everything that's gone down in Mexico, from those coup attempts right up to today.

Paul Sanders5 said:Personally, I’d say about 80% of people are just plain clueless and fall for any authority figure like Vladimir Putin or anything coming out of Russia. Then you’ve got another 15 to 20% who are clearly acting in someone's interest. I don't see any issue with investigating this—digging into where those payments and donations are actually coming from.

Just let the institutions do their damn jobs.

So, you're being pretty subtle about where exactly this investigation should start, aren't you?😉

Paul Sanders5 said:Personally, I’d say about 80% of people are just plain clueless and fall for any authority figure like Vladimir Putin or anything coming out of Russia. Then you’ve got another 15 to 20% who are clearly acting in someone's interest. I don't see any issue with investigating this—digging into where those payments and donations are actually coming from.

Just let the institutions do their damn jobs.

We aren't talking about some random person on the street who is terrified of war and would surrender everything just to stay safe. This concerns influential individuals holding significant positions. Take a pro-Russian figure like Vidmarovic, for instance, who might be on someone's payroll. Such people can perversely manipulate others toward the Russian side. We must remain vigilant regarding who is speaking or writing, and we ought to investigate their meetings and bank transfers.