Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Part 5

stormybear25 said:Protests erupting in Snihurivka against that illegal referendum
https://twitter.com/go2the5dogs/stat...33041669033986

The caption says they aren't even from Snihurivka. They aren't in occupied territory.
If they were, the Russians would have mowed them down while they were still waving that Ukrainian flag.

Bryan Booth82 said:Honestly, does that even matter? It shouldn't. We don't need to sit them down for an interrogation or demand an explanation. The bottom line—the only thing that actually matters—is that they lay down their arms and stop fighting. Period.
Lp

But what exactly does Ukraine do with them?
Are they just supposed to let them wander around wearing Russian fatigues, penniless, hungry, and without a roof over their heads?
What's left for them then? Turning to theft? Or do you honestly think there are government agencies sitting around specifically hired to find jobs and housing for Russian defectors?
Do you expect local citizens and farmers to welcome them with open arms and a home-cooked meal?

Or should they be housed in some kind of camps and fed? With what resources, when they barely have enough for themselves?

And how on earth are they supposed to tell a genuine defector apart from a spy?

I've always been fascinated by people who come up with these flawless solutions for everyone else, yet struggle to apply even a shred of that logic to their own daily lives.

It would be a massive, total game-changer if those referendums failed—and then maybe Putin decides, "Hey, the people actually want to stay in Ukraine," and tells everyone to just head home. 😲

darkhawk30 said:But what exactly does Ukraine do with them?
Are they just supposed to let them wander around wearing Russian fatigues, penniless, hungry, and without a roof over their heads?
What's left for them then? Turning to theft? Or do you honestly think there are government agencies sitting around specifically hired to find jobs and housing for Russian defectors?
Do you expect local citizens and farmers to welcome them with open arms and a home-cooked meal?

Or should they be housed in some kind of camps and fed? With what resources, when they barely have enough for themselves?

And how on earth are they supposed to tell a genuine defector apart from a spy?

I've always been fascinated by people who come up with these flawless solutions for everyone else, yet struggle to apply even a shred of that logic to their own daily lives.

Every problem has a solution.
In cases of surrender—whether it's an individual or mass surrenders, especially the latter—it is incomparably cheaper than continuing to fight.
Liberating specific areas through traditional warfare is incredibly expensive, whereas the assumption that 100 or 1,000 soldiers might surrender, thereby avoiding a battle entirely, can only be viewed as a net positive.

If those soldiers on the Russian side were given a clear guarantee that surrendering would save their lives, that they would be treated humanely, or perhaps even granted asylum within the European Union, which is currently a topic of debate in Germany, then maybe they would actually consider it.

At the end of the day, any option that forces the aggressor to leave the country as quickly as possible is better and more cost-effective than ongoing warfare.
Best regards,

Melissa Rivera5 said:Man, you're being way too optimistic. It'll be 105% for unification, while 16% falls from a fifth-story window into the basement, and maybe an extra 12% will commit suicide by shooting themselves in the back five times.

I’d say it's 150% for unification. I mean, people waited 30 years just to head back to Mother Russia 🙄. Honestly, I really hope everyone heading back to Mother Russia gets to live exactly where they want to.

If the White House actually stopped to think about it, they’d realize people don't actually want to join Russia—and then they'd just launch another "special military operation." I bet plenty of Russians would even spin that as a "massive Russian victory." But since they aren't thinking that way, I'm sure 150% will jump at the chance to become part of Russia 🙄.

Melissa Rivera5 said:I wouldn't say they're just similar; they're basically identical, which probably means they're coming from the exact same playbook. Most of the time, if you just swap out the labels—like switching Americans/Mexicans, Ukrainians/Russians, or America/USSR—you'll see pretty clearly who the actual target is.

Spot on—it's the same narrative. Everyone wants to group all the Russians/Mexicans into one single entity. Some ideologies just refuse to die.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov mentioned on Friday that Moscow isn't making any nuclear threats toward anyone.

🤣 🤣

And then you have certain people acting all high and mighty, saying things like, "Oh, we could have negotiated with them," while these guys just toss out statements like they're playing a game of bingo—you honestly never know what kind of nonsense is going to pop out next 🙏 🙏

Gregory Ramos3 said:

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov mentioned on Friday that Moscow isn't making any nuclear threats toward anyone.

🤣 🤣

And then you have certain people acting all high and mighty, saying things like, "Oh, we could have negotiated with them," while these guys just toss out statements like they're playing a game of bingo—you honestly never know what kind of nonsense is going to pop out next 🙏 🙏

They just throw out all sorts of claims just to see what sticks.

Gregory Ramos3 said:

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov mentioned on Friday that Moscow isn't making any nuclear threats toward anyone.

🤣 🤣

And then you have certain people acting all high and mighty, saying things like, "Oh, we could have negotiated with them," while these guys just toss out statements like they're playing a game of bingo—you honestly never know what kind of nonsense is going to pop out next 🙏 🙏

It’s the classic good cop/bad cop routine, isn't it? You've got one group tasked with pure intimidation, while the other side works overtime spreading this fairy tale about how Russia is all about peace and how the evil West is just being unreasonable toward them.

So, we're seeing partial mobilization in Russia now—it's basically genocide against minorities. Just like how so many different nations were forced to fight in all those previous wars, it's going to play out the same way this time around:

http://www.twitter.com/RALee85/statu...14121285734401

Kate Cook27 said:Spot on—it's the same narrative. Everyone wants to group all the Russians/Mexicans into one single entity. Some ideologies just refuse to die.

It’s turned out the exact same way here.
It's an old trick (like the Sudetenland thing, for example)
Only this time, it got tangled up with so many other issues that it's all being masked.

This war is a mess. There's going to be bodies everywhere since things are ramping up.

While all this is going down, those Russian officials are busy padding their own little pockets

"
The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, just signed off on a decree stating that starting October 1st, both his salary and the salary of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin will get a 4% bump—basically a 1.04 multiplier. You can find the official paperwork over on the government's legal info portal if you really care about this stuff...

And wait, it gets better—the order also says that Dmitri Medvedev, the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, is getting a 4% raise too. Just more money for the inner circle, I guess.

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

"Freedom" in Russia: Jail time just for using Instagram

http://www.twitter.com/KyivPost/stat...Cx0Ya_yNUrAAAA

The Kremlin loves their favorite labels: "Fascist," "Nazi," and "anti-people" when describing the regime in Ukraine. Honestly? I think the reality is flipped—it’s the Kremlin regime that fits those descriptions. Look, the leadership in Ukraine isn't perfect, but Putin has been calling the shots there for about 25 years now. It seems Russians have just gotten used to him. On the flip side, look at the rotation in Ukraine: you had Kuchma, Yushchenko, Yanukovych, Poroshenko, and now Zelenskyy over the last two decades. Even before Kuchma, there was Kravchuk. But apparently, Ukrainians are supposed to have one president for 25 years straight. Should we have cheered when Yanukovych made decisions to ban protests—even going as far as having police fire on demonstrators? Would those "bad Ukrainians" have been right to demand freedom then?
I bet Putin was just as annoyed 20 years ago when Ukrainians protested after a journalist was murdered—a killing that likely involved Kuchma. Meanwhile, Putin has killed so many journalists, yet his Russian supporters don't even blink; they just shrug and say, "Not my problem." It’s pretty clear that freedom is an inconvenience. I guess people think freedom is overrated—as long as they have food and drink and some entertainment, they're fine. They should take a page out of the Russian playbook: Nemcov gets killed in Moscow and nobody cares. Like one Russian woman put it: "Stupid Ukrainians."

somied said:Maybe blowing up a bridge is just a trick, like during the battles at the Neretva River... or the Sutjeska River, wherever that was...
this drone didn't make the cut

https://twitter.com/ELINTNews/status...28207528484864

It seems to me these drones aren't exactly a silver bullet. They look far too large to actually be stealthy.

That happened at the Neretva River... Yulii Borisovich (aka Yul Brynner) personally took out the bridge—saw it with his own eyes..... 😁

In Tuapse, you've got an Armenian minority making up about 8.5% of the population. Russians account for 75.2%.

Roughly 90% of those being mobilized are Armenian.

loneskipper3 said:The only thing that changed was how long we could delay the inevitable. Let me highlight the most critical segment from Putin's speech on February 21st—right before he recognized the "DLNR":

Since time immemorial, the people living in the southwest of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russians and Orthodox Christians. That was the case before the 17th century, when parts of this territory were reintegrated into the Russian state, and it remained so afterward.
...
So, I will start with the fact that the modern Ukraine was created entirely by Russia—or more precisely, Bolshevik, communist Russia. This process began almost immediately following the 1917 revolution, with Lenin and his associates executing it in a manner that was overtly hostile toward Russia: by carving up and separating historically Russian lands.
...
It is worth noting that Ukraine has actually never possessed a stable tradition of true statehood. Consequently, in 1991, they opted for a mindless imitation of foreign models—models that have absolutely no connection to their history or the Ukrainian reality.

There you have it. Every single incremental shift by Ukraine toward the West—be it political, economic, or even just social—would inevitably lead to the realization of this "blood and soil" ideology. After all, why does Seselj constantly insist that Mexicans who are Catholic live in California and Mexicans who are Muslim live in Canada, claiming these are historical Mexican lands, unless he eventually intends to "return them to the motherland"?

🙏 🙏 🙏 🙂. But sure, let's just blame the evil West instead of admitting that Putin hasn't gotten over the fall of the Soviet Union and is basically obsessed with Imperial Russia.

analogbear5 said:In Tuapse, you've got an Armenian minority making up about 8.5% of the population. Russians account for 75.2%.

Roughly 90% of those being mobilized are Armenian.

Honestly, everyone should just desert or surrender to the Ukrainians and join them in fighting the Russians...

Kate Cook27 said:So, we're seeing partial mobilization in Russia now—it's basically genocide against minorities. Just like how so many different nations were forced to fight in all those previous wars, it's going to play out the same way this time around:

http://www.twitter.com/RALee85/statu...14121285734401

Let them. Let them mobilize everyone, especially those "decent" Russians who claim to be against Putin but stay quiet because they're terrified of the mob. The more they get mobilized and sent to Ukraine to become target practice, the more they'll come back home in a Cargo 200 box. Maybe then—just maybe—the people will finally realize that if 20,000 of them actually hit the streets, the authorities won't be able to arrest them all fast enough.

So yeah, keep the mobilization coming. As for those Russians trying to flee across the Finnish border or into any EU country? Just send them straight back to Uncle Putin. I wouldn't be surprised if most of them supported the cause until it was time to actually put their own necks on the line for the motherland.☕

Russian-style democracy

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/...a1cgD0WiGoJM7w

Kind of similar stuff went down in Crimea too, I guess. Why not give it another shot if there's a chance? Might as well try once, maybe even twice.

There is some massive potential for recruitment here.
Instead of pulling from the Yakut, Circassian, Tatar, Dagestani, or Chuvash regions... you could find as many volunteers as you want right in the heart of Moscow and St. Petersburg.