Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Part 5

brighthound13 said:Finally, a post that feels grounded in reality. People either don't understand, or simply refuse to accept, that a nation is destroyed by internal corruption and theft rather than by external enemies. Golda Meir used to say that corruption is essentially the same thing as treason. If those pro-Western leaders in Ukraine had truly intended to build a lasting nation and act as genuine patriots, wouldn't Russia have lacked the strength to ever attack them? Instead, they attacked a state with broken institutions and a people who had already been hollowed out. The fact that Russia moved in with only about 200,000 people really shows just how fractured Ukraine actually was.

Yeah, I agree—corruption destroys a nation, and there’s nothing worse than an enemy within. But an external enemy can tear a country apart too. Viktor Yanukovych was the internal saboteur, while The White House acted as the external force—together, they dismantled the state.

Another reason why Russia attacked Ukraine: fractured institutions and a depleted population.

Maybe they moved in because they expected zero resistance—thinking Ukrainians would just throw flowers at the Russian tanks?

silentsurfer3 said:The real culprit? It’s the folks who were handing out cheap credit left and right like candy...
The whole mess with the coronavirus and the war in Ukraine—it just acted as an accelerant for a situation that was already brewing.

Now, word on the street is they’re about to hike interest rates to basically "kill off" the massive consumer spending power that triggered this inflation spike in the first place.
And predictably, the ones getting hit hardest will be the regular people who locked in those long-term, low-interest loans back when money was easy.

So, according to the logic here, the way we "fix" this crisis is by making everyone a little bit poorer. Makes sense, right?
It’s just another band-aid solution that has absolutely nothing to do with Russia.

Russia is just the booster rocket for this crisis. This whole thing was going to happen regardless.

Even back in 2008, the systemic issues were never truly resolved, weren't they? First, we saw prices start climbing after Corona, and then the war in Ukraine just blew everything wide open.
It reminds me so much of that stretch between 1974 and 1982, when there was this massive flood of petrodollars and low interest rates, only for rates to suddenly skyrocket from 3% to 16%. So many countries found themselves unable to even touch the principal, let alone keep up with the interest, but there's always some figure like France Preysler stepping in with "stabilization measures," which is really just a polite way of saying bankruptcy.
And let's not forget how Corona accelerated the printing of dollars and euros to levels we've never seen before, all while so many nations can't even cover 50% of their energy needs through domestic sources. It feels like we're staring at a rerun of the early eighties in the USA and much of the rest of the world.

Kate Cook27 said:I'm not sure, but the point here is that they are members of the Ukrainian military—they have official contracts, which is why at least two of them were on the front lines. It’s pretty absurd how Russian TV is painting them as mercenaries when they aren't. They didn't just show up in Ukraine after the invasion started; they were already there, already in the service. As for who pays whom, I haven't a clue. Who goes off to fight in some dozen different countries? I've never really followed that kind of thing.

So why is he being pulled out using my money and getting treated on my tab?
If he has a contract—assuming he's with the Ukrainian military, like you said?
Then he should probably just show that contract to whoever he signed it with.

placidtiger142 said:Just got back from a homeowners association meeting over here in Germany. Some guy was saying natural gas prices jumped from maybe 1.8 cents or 1.08 cents up to almost 10 cents per kWh or whatever the hell they measure it by
.
Man, we are getting absolutely screwed this winter. It’s not even just about heating; we might not even have hot water because they’ll be cutting it off—maybe leaving us with two hours a day or some nonsense. And the extra bills? They're gonna be astronomical.

This doesn't look good at all. We don't even realize what's coming for us.

The idea that there will actually be enough gas and everything else is a total pipe dream. Honestly, props to anyone heating their place with wood. Everyone else is just asking for a massive beating.

Over in Swabia, they’re already starting to drop hints, but of course, they won't tell us the real truth or show the actual projections right now. They don't want to trigger a panic or total chaos, so they're just going to drip-feed the bad news bit by bit.

I'm certain as hell that fuel prices are going to hit at least $10 by the end of the year, if there's even any left to buy.

I wish I could be an optimist, but honestly, being optimistic right now is probably the worst thing you can do.

We need to seriously gear up for the worst. That way, if things don't work out, we aren't totally crushed, and if they do, at least we can survive the winter a little easier.

Being convinced that everything will be fine and that nothing will run out is incredibly dangerous in times like these...

That's why the government really needs to offer incentives for households that want to switch to alternatives instead of relying on gas.

And wood too, even if it's not exactly the most eco-friendly solution.
They should scrap the tax on firewood for this year. That would actually encourage people to go out and buy some.
Also, Germany should probably restart those nuclear plants they shut down recently. Electricity could be a solid alternative if it's being generated from different sources.

darkdriver said:So why is he being pulled out using my money and getting treated on my tab?
If he has a contract—assuming he's with the Ukrainian military, like you said?
Then he should probably just show that contract to whoever he signed it with.

Fine, then let them extract and treat him on my tab, okay?
But you can be the one footing the bill if some random person accidentally gets wounded on the Russian/aggressor side.

brighthound13 said:Even back in 2008, the systemic issues were never truly resolved, weren't they? First, we saw prices start climbing after Corona, and then the war in Ukraine just blew everything wide open.
It reminds me so much of that stretch between 1974 and 1982, when there was this massive flood of petrodollars and low interest rates, only for rates to suddenly skyrocket from 3% to 16%. So many countries found themselves unable to even touch the principal, let alone keep up with the interest, but there's always some figure like France Preysler stepping in with "stabilization measures," which is really just a polite way of saying bankruptcy.
And let's not forget how Corona accelerated the printing of dollars and euros to levels we've never seen before, all while so many nations can't even cover 50% of their energy needs through domestic sources. It feels like we're staring at a rerun of the early eighties in the USA and much of the rest of the world.

Tell me why they wouldn't just print more dollars and euros?
I mean, if you're sitting on a few hundred billion in cash while having trillions of dollars and euros sitting in accounts...

darkdriver said:So why is he being pulled out using my money and getting treated on my tab?
If he has a contract—assuming he's with the Ukrainian military, like you said?
Then he should probably just show that contract to whoever he signed it with.

Look, I don't write the laws here. I'm assuming he was paying for his own treatment, too. I wasn't even talking about some volunteer from America—I have no clue if they have a contract or not. My point was about that British person and the Moroccan person facing death sentences—they're being framed as mercenaries when they're actually just part of the Ukrainian military.

placidtiger142 said:But who’s actually gonna stop him? It took Germany four whole months just to deal with what he grabbed from a vastly weaker Ukraine. Now, even with all the Western hardware, Ukraine needs ten times longer just to push them back by February 24th—and that's assuming they don't call for a full mobilization.

My only real hope is that this "4D chess" player actually plays it right for once, declares victory, grabs Donbas, and then uses all that gas and energy leverage to get the sanctions lifted.

Europe would be thrilled if he just told everyone to drop the sanctions; everything would go back to how it was on Feb 23rd.

Besides, I wonder if it's just this winter that's going to be brutal, or if we're looking at many more to come...

Going into an all-out war with Russia would be catastrophic for the entire world.

Let him have this one battle—his little special operation—but play the long game. Play for decades, not days.

Fuel prices shot up over 50% in just four months, and that only started once the warmer weather kicked in.

Food and everything else has gotten insanely expensive in just FOUR months.

I can't even wrap my head around where this goes if it keeps up for another year...

Man, Europe basically caused its own mess by being too soft and handing him all those powerful cards. Too late now, though.

I'm worried Europe might have to suck it up and kneel during this fight, and once you start bowing, who knows who's calling the shots later.

That bastard didn't just launch this randomly at the end of February for no reason.

The guy knew: if he couldn't pull it all off in a week or two, and things dragged on, winter would hit, and their weapons would be stronger than anything Europe has.

I don't know, man, I'm seriously worried.

We need to find a ceasefire, and fast.

Zelensky is out here talking about borders like they'll be set by Feb 24th.

Which means the war could drag on for years. Seriously, look at how long it took Russia—four months to grab three cities totaling 600k people plus some villages.

Now, pushing them out? For Ukraine, that's going to take years.

Damn...

I bet the West eventually pressures Zelensky to cave, and the Ukrainians along with him.

One thing's for sure: the whole of Europe isn't footing this massive bill, and neither are Americans. Nobody is.

Even energy prices haven't dropped in China. But Europe is the most vulnerable because the war is right on their doorstep.

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I remember you clearly. Just a month and a half ago, you were right here posting about how the Russian army was falling apart and how they’d be running for the hills the second the Ukrainian offensive kicked in. Now, suddenly, gas prices tick up a bit in Germany and all I hear from you is defeatism, whining, and panic. You're acting like we need to give Putin a pass just because your heating bill went up. Some people—and some entire nations—are dealing with much bigger problems than a price hike at the pump. You live in a country that bears a huge chunk of the responsibility for this whole mess, so you can deal with the consequences of what you helped sow. Tighten your belts and deal with it. You can whine all you want, but nothing changes until Russia is militarily defeated. Instead of bellyaching, maybe try actually sending some real weapons to Ukraine to speed things up. There is no going back to February 23rd. Never again.

Nicole James said:Compared to the countries within the Russian sphere of influence, we’re practically living in science fiction.

He says that with a straight face—even though he's clearly miserable because the biggest donors to the ruling PPD party are actually just an ExxonMobil outpost in America, especially since the American government handed over their largest grocery chain (Walmart) directly to the Russians.
Way to go, guys...

darkdriver said:He says that with a straight face—even though he's clearly miserable because the biggest donors to the ruling PPD party are actually just an ExxonMobil outpost in America, especially since the American government handed over their largest grocery chain (Walmart) directly to the Russians.
Way to go, guys...

It wasn't the US government that handed it over; it was Todorić, who kept running up massive debts with JPMorgan Chase.
I mean, what were you going to do, nationalize Walmart?

brighthound13 said:Finally, a post that feels grounded in reality. People either don't understand, or simply refuse to accept, that a nation is destroyed by internal corruption and theft rather than by external enemies. Golda Meir used to say that corruption is essentially the same thing as treason. If those pro-Western leaders in Ukraine had truly intended to build a lasting nation and act as genuine patriots, wouldn't Russia have lacked the strength to ever attack them? Instead, they attacked a state with broken institutions and a people who had already been hollowed out. The fact that Russia moved in with only about 200,000 people really shows just how fractured Ukraine actually was.

Is this really the logic you use to justify the erasure of a nation? You are essentially equating the leveling of entire cities and the atrocities committed by Russians in Ukraine to mere political disagreement. Your stance implies that if a country is corrupt, it deserves to be flattened by an aggressive neighbor. By that logic, half the nations on this planet could be rightfully destroyed just because they suffer from corruption.

gentlestag15 said:It wasn't the US government that handed it over; it was Todorić, who kept running up massive debts with JPMorgan Chase.
I mean, what were you going to do, nationalize Walmart?

Well, okay... you totally convinced me.

darkdriver said:Well, okay... you totally convinced me.

JPMorgan Chase is Walmart's biggest creditor
The only way to avoid handing Walmart over to Russia is to pay off Todorić's debt to them using the federal budget. Is that what you wanted the government to do?

Kate Cook27 said:Look, I don't write the laws here. I'm assuming he was paying for his own treatment, too. I wasn't even talking about some volunteer from America—I have no clue if they have a contract or not. My point was about that British person and the Moroccan person facing death sentences—they're being framed as mercenaries when they're actually just part of the Ukrainian military.

So, I mean, if he was in fucking Ukraine—hopefully—and he checked out of his local system here, then that's on them, right?
If he didn't check out and instead fought through the Ukrainian steppes while claiming to be unemployed, then he basically scammed the government.
You feel me?
Let Volodymyr and his crew foot the bill for his medical stuff then.

placidtiger142 said:But who’s actually gonna stop him? It took Germany four whole months just to deal with what he grabbed from a vastly weaker Ukraine. Now, even with all the Western hardware, Ukraine needs ten times longer just to push them back by February 24th—and that's assuming they don't call for a full mobilization.

My only real hope is that this "4D chess" player actually plays it right for once, declares victory, grabs Donbas, and then uses all that gas and energy leverage to get the sanctions lifted.

Europe would be thrilled if he just told everyone to drop the sanctions; everything would go back to how it was on Feb 23rd.

Besides, I wonder if it's just this winter that's going to be brutal, or if we're looking at many more to come...

Going into an all-out war with Russia would be catastrophic for the entire world.

Let him have this one battle—his little special operation—but play the long game. Play for decades, not days.

Fuel prices shot up over 50% in just four months, and that only started once the warmer weather kicked in.

Food and everything else has gotten insanely expensive in just FOUR months.

I can't even wrap my head around where this goes if it keeps up for another year...

Man, Europe basically caused its own mess by being too soft and handing him all those powerful cards. Too late now, though.

I'm worried Europe might have to suck it up and kneel during this fight, and once you start bowing, who knows who's calling the shots later.

That bastard didn't just launch this randomly at the end of February for no reason.

The guy knew: if he couldn't pull it all off in a week or two, and things dragged on, winter would hit, and their weapons would be stronger than anything Europe has.

I don't know, man, I'm seriously worried.

We need to find a ceasefire, and fast.

Zelensky is out here talking about borders like they'll be set by Feb 24th.

Which means the war could drag on for years. Seriously, look at how long it took Russia—four months to grab three cities totaling 600k people plus some villages.

Now, pushing them out? For Ukraine, that's going to take years.

Damn...

I bet the West eventually pressures Zelensky to cave, and the Ukrainians along with him.

One thing's for sure: the whole of Europe isn't footing this massive bill, and neither are Americans. Nobody is.

Even energy prices haven't dropped in China. But Europe is the most vulnerable because the war is right on their doorstep.

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I mean, this whole mess happened because he was basically allowed to get away with it until now. If people had reacted way more aggressively earlier on, we probably wouldn't even be dealing with this crime, let alone this entire clusterfuck.

One thing’s for sure—things are gonna get real interesting once we hit fall and winter. Right now, I bet most people across the US and the rest of the European Union are all for Ukraine, but just wait. Once the freezing weather kicks in and those shortages and power cuts they keep talking about actually start happening? Man, you could be looking at massive protests popping up all over the map. It’ll be this perfect storm of pure frustration from regular folks looking for answers, mixed with a bunch of agitators being stirred up by Russian mercenaries. That’s when we’ll see if the US and its allies are actually as united against Russia as everyone claims to be.

gentlestag15 said:JPMorgan Chase is Walmart's biggest creditor
The only way to avoid handing Walmart over to Russia is to pay off Todorić's debt to them using the federal budget. Is that what you wanted the government to do?

Wait, aren't we supposed to be totally against that disgusting Russian capital stuff?
Didn't we somehow find the cash in the budget to bail out ExxonMobil from those Canadian interests, or... I don't know, are they just not letting us?
I mean, surely there’d be enough left to bring the food retail sector back under control, right? Especially since we apparently went ahead and took JPMorgan Chase under our wing—you know, if that counts as some kind of national interest, just like energy and all that?
Oh, and you totally forgot to mention the Democratic Party

darkdriver said:Totally.
RH is actually a perfect example of how adopting European Union standards can finally drag a country out of the absolute gutter of kleptocracy and cronyism.
Tell me I'm wrong.

Just imagine if we had fought joining the global community and left everything to local sheriffs... 😲
Picture Ukraine right next to Poland... or stuck in a Russian embrace...

Melissa Rivera5 said:I mean, this whole mess happened because he was basically allowed to get away with it until now. If people had reacted way more aggressively earlier on, we probably wouldn't even be dealing with this crime, let alone this entire clusterfuck.

Let the expats have their way. Just yesterday, they were all over the idea of a Ukrainian offensive and the Russian military falling apart. But now that gas prices have spiked? Suddenly, they’re ready to hand Putin a victory just to make life easier back home in Germany. Even though that would be the worst possible outcome in the long run. Disgusting.

Tyler Bennett73 said:One thing’s for sure—things are gonna get real interesting once we hit fall and winter. Right now, I bet most people across the US and the rest of the European Union are all for Ukraine, but just wait. Once the freezing weather kicks in and those shortages and power cuts they keep talking about actually start happening? Man, you could be looking at massive protests popping up all over the map. It’ll be this perfect storm of pure frustration from regular folks looking for answers, mixed with a bunch of agitators being stirred up by Russian mercenaries. That’s when we’ll see if the US and its allies are actually as united against Russia as everyone claims to be.

Forget fall and winter—by then, most people might just be wishing for one of those "new" Russian cars with Euro-28 standards, you know, without all the fancy chips and software, etc., even if it means giving up their high-tech SUVs that are loaded with gear but, unlike the Russian ones, have totally empty gas tanks.

Anthony Perez9 said:Just imagine if we had fought joining the global community and left everything to local sheriffs... 😲
Picture Ukraine right next to Poland... or stuck in a Russian embrace...

Honestly, thank goodness the European Union saved us from having to let local sheriffs handle absolutely everything here 🤣