kraze
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Posts posted by kraze
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2 hours ago, Beleg85 said:
This is beyond beautiful.
I try to follow Russian fascination with everything British in this conflict, and it is already like Alice in Wonderland on acid. Somebody will need to write a solid anthropological wok about this phenomenon when war ends. Still don't know if it is more phantom pain after "Londongrad", ambition to level up to Victorian imperialism esthetics, some very late burps after Crimean War or urge to find equal adversary with Anglophilia masked as Anglophobia. Or simply too much exposure to British cinema (Bond...)and Netflix serials. But it is very real phenomenon that just keeps giving so much joy (or rather would be, if not the grim circumstances).
British Empire still holds the world record on most planetary landmass occupied ever. And also it let go of all those after winning WW2 and ended up being even stronger for it. Wouldn't be surprised if that has anything to do with russian hatred. Russia is the last empire on Earth after all and it's time is running out without any real "achievements" to add to history books. Not even a single successful conquest.
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11 minutes ago, Grigb said:
Extremly interesting development
This is slap on Kadyrov face because Kadyrov plays role kind of Islamic defender in RU. If he ignores it, he will lose reputation and if he does not then there is good cause to arrest him as an extremist. Well, Kadyrov already stated his extreme displeasure.
Given that he is goon of Putin it begs a question how Putin has allowed it to happen. And who controls the power now in RU? Because Supreme Court of Tatarstan would not do a thing without consulting Kremlin. So, we have two versions:
- Kadyrov did something so Putin got mad decided to get rid of his most loyal ally
- Somebody already disconnected Putin from at least some of the State decision making procedures and is making move to get rid of Putin most loyal ally.
This story is our window inside Kremlin power struggle. I do not believe in Kadyrov did something extremely bad for Putin. I do believe that there is power struggle and we can see the degree of Putin control over RU by watching if decision is reversed in coming days.
If the decision is reversed, he is still in power. If not - oh, boy, there is a coup and it is half successful already.
Occam's razor. Some bureaucrat did bureaucracy. It's a book with weird language different from russian. Different from russian = extremist. Easy.
Expect it to be reversed and whoever did this apologize to kadyrov.
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At one point they will be bombing Kremlin and saying that "look - Ukrainian forces at Kursk were only a distraction - the real attack was done by the Nibiru-Dalek spacial forces. The score is 1000-0 in our favor"
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38 minutes ago, Zeleban said:
people fought for freedom under Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and others, but they were able to win only under Gorbachev. The victory was made possible thanks to his policy
No. The victory was made possible ALSO because USSR became weakened by its extreme corruption and constant deaths of emperors, one after the other. Gorbachov just got "lucky" to be "young" enough after non-stop deaths of his predecessors due to old age. But those deaths caused huge shifts among power blocks inside the party because those blocks were gaining and losing power at random - resulting in chaos and opportunities arising locally due to it.
It just so happened that Ukrainians, among other people, managed to exploit the weakness of the empire.
Gorbachov was just an absolutely random guy, completely inconsequential. Collapse was set in stone in about 1979-1980. But he tried to prevent it. Lots of people died all around USSR due to his orders as he blindly tried to save the empire.
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58 minutes ago, Zeleban said:
he was definitely behind the collapse of the USSR
Nope. People fighting for freedom were. Fighting against him among other things. He just so happened to be the emperor of USSR then.
He's as much behind the collapse of USSR as Hitler is behind collapse of Nazi Germany. If you mean it that way - then sure.
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1 hour ago, Holien said:
Hi to help me understand can you kindly put a bit more detail into this?
I thought he stopped the Russian forces from getting involved in many external situations.
He didn't. As a kid I witnessed the brutal beat downs of local pro-Ukrainian protests in 1990 by the "OMOH", also due to living next to the central square of my city where they tended to happen. Almost got caught in one of those with my mom. It also kinda contributed to my outlook on these things since. I mean when you are 5 and see a trolleybus driver block the street and go on a roof with a big Ukrainian flag, as the crowd is resisting the "riot police" - it lives an impression for life.
Later in life I also learned that nothing really changed in regards to Ukraine during his rule - people still went to jail for supporting independence, many didn't return and never witnessed it happen just a few years later.
Bonus is that Gorbachev also held a "referendum" to save USSR, where he expected local "general secretaries" of his to give him very positive results - but only 6 agreed and gave him "70%+ people want to remain in USSR" results. That included Ukraine as well (russian propagandists now use this as another "reason" to "cancel" our independence). Other "gensecs" just knew better where the wind was blowing, so to speak.
And in Lithuania Gorbachev even tried to quell the resistance by actually ordering shooting of protesters (probably wanted to gauge if he can do the same in much bigger countries without consequence). That didn't go well thankfully.
It's also why I wrote here about that good old russian "liberal" trick of "hey West, look, have Perestroika OK? You let us kill people now OK?" a few pages back.
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7 hours ago, Zeleban said:
gorby died. one of the people behind the emergence of modern Ukraine. I remember this character when I was a child
He was certainly not behind the emergence of modern Ukraine. He was actively fighting it. Very brutally and violently.
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22 minutes ago, Taranis said:
"After denouncing the offensive in Ukraine, a Russian soldier requests asylum in France
He broke the law of silence and fled Russia: Pavel Filatiev, a soldier who fought for two months in Ukraine before denouncing the Kremlin offensive in a long story published on the Internet, requests political asylum in France . The 34-year-old soldier arrived in Roissy on Sunday via Tunisia and met with agents from the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra) on Monday.So how many women did this brave man, a future "native French citizen" rape and how many men he killed during these two months, during which he was perfectly OK with doing warcrimes?
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17 minutes ago, Grigb said:
And unlike rest of population they are making progress because they are looking at West and are trying to emulate it. LGBT for example is accepted by RU Liberals. If West make it clear to them that certain behavior is unacceptable, they will change.
This is not true. And it's what I mean by their danger and hazard. "We accept tolerating LGBT but you let us murder and rape in Ukraine, OK?"
It worked perfectly for them in the '90s. Moldova, Georgia, Ichkeriya and Azerbaijan suffered murder, rape and looting without consequence for russian "liberals" because said "liberals" simply allowed private property and started doing relatively fair trade with US and EU.
It's much better for russia to be directed by insane nazis than by intelligent nazis - because it will crash and burn faster. And maybe current war against us will be the last war Russia will ever have started.
At the end of this it will be better for Russia to not exist at all than to be there and run by people like Navalny, who will just pedal back a bit and will just be starting smaller wars with no less suffering for his victims really.
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38 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:
Galeev (Kazan Tatar) is more cynical about those 'liberals'. He views the Moscow elites as a hydra (chop one head off, another 2 grow) and should be given the boot entirely (by the provincials) and not shored up by their Western (elite) counterparts.
...unlike the decadent Uzbeks, who will never amount to much.
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Btw, isn't 'Chops' short for черножопый, which is basically the Russian 'n-word'? Not here to be woke police, just curious.
But I mean the guy is not wrong. russian "liberals" are even more cynical than their "RU nats" counterpart. They are just as fascist - but are a lot more dangerous because they are intelligent enough to pretend being "moderate". It's how Yelstin completely got away with all the atrocities - "yeah we just finished burning a few ichkerians alive, but we love your McDonald's, we gonna eat that McDonald's so good, let's be friends US" *proceeds to drop bombs on Grozny civilian district*.
It's why I find Navalny to be a lot more hazardous than putin or girkin. Because in case of the latter two the West will keep cracking down on Russia. But Navalny and his likes knows how to pull West's strings to let all the warcrimes slide.
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5 minutes ago, Ultradave said:
IAEA to visit Zaporizhzhya power plant this week. While they can't do anything, they can make a thorough evaluation of any damage and the integrity of safeguards and safety systems.
Sounds like the offsite power supply TO the plant is back on line, which is good news.
A couple of caveats - unknown how cooperative Russians occupying the plant will be with the IAEA, and the off site power of course is vulnerable to being cut off at any time. For now, all is well. Tomorrow?
Dave
This IAEA delegation was allowed there on a condition that it won't have people from countries "unfriendly" to Russia.
So I'm calling it now - they will say "everything is ok, russians treat ZNPP like a princess".
But!
This is russians we are talking about - and russians are amazingly talented at ****ing everything up at the worst possible moment (for them). So there's a very non-zero chance of something going really bad right in front of IAEA due to sheer stupidity that will be extremely hard to cover up.
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2 minutes ago, danfrodo said:
So RU TV viewers are showing battle over some rubble in Pisky and it would be presented as a great victory. Meanwhile, UKR today is taking a large number of villages and making real gains. Gonna be quite a shock to RU folks if Kherson falls when they think they've been doing all the 'winning'.
"Good will gestures" come in all shapes and forms, my man.
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50 minutes ago, danfrodo said:
When it comes to overthrowing Putin, one of the things I have trouble getting my head around is exactly how this would be done. He seems to have big cadre(s) of very loyal guards. What does an overthrow actually look like? Does someone bribe the guards -- that's a dangerous conversation. How would one actually get at Putin?
I was hoping he'd be hit while traveling to/from Turkey a couple months ago, but no luck.
Poison of course.
And don't even need to poison the guy fast like Stalin.
Poison can be administered slowly, like they did it to Yeltsin. Even looks like the guy is gradually going senile and drunk from outside, as poison kills his braincells.
Problem is that putin did Yeltsin's poisoning and that trick would not work on him.
Or would it? (Dun dun duuuun)
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10 hours ago, chuckdyke said:
A German explanation of the Russian artillery missions in the Donbass. The translation is OK the missions were 60000 shells a day HE of 40 kg . Looks like the Russians make the same mistake as the Germans did during the Blitz of 1940. Target civilian infrastructure whist the Ukrainian Army targets the Russian military.
At this point we pretty much established that Russia is just really a big cosplay of Nazi Germany.
They just hope what didn't work for their forefathers - will totally work from the second attempt.
People in Ukraine at this point really became numb to russian terrorism - it happens daily, it's just 'telly news' for those who didn't die this night - which is both a good and a bad thing - but bad for russian Nazis either way because it gives them nothing - but they can't wage war in any other way.
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5 hours ago, danfrodo said:
I think I agree with this but would say it differently. In times of chaos and upheaval, it is often the most ruthless that succeed, at least in the short term. Folks that balk at murdering innocents (like families of enemies) are less effective at gaining control. When you say "respect or support" of population I would say "instill fear and terror" in the population.
It's culture POV-dependent.
What seems like a funny cargo cult to you from outside - is a serious and respected thing inside. And current generations of cargo cultists weren't even born when demigods Tom Navy and John Frum walked the heaven and the earth, they got to believe via parents who weren't born then either.
To some hammer and sickle sculpted out of cow crap gives hope and not fear.
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18 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
We should expect the same with Russia. The pressures for revolution have been building for a long time. Putin has been increasingly pushing back with more force and less restraint (let's just put 2011 as a starting point). The war itself might have been significantly influenced by internal domestic pressures against his regime. For sure Putin doesn't think he can survive full mobilization, which is the only strong possibility of winning this war.
My point here is that the pot was near a boil even in February 2022 and Putin stupidly turned up the heat. Recent RU Nat behavior seems to be the bubbles one sees as a boil comes into being. Putin can't turn down the heat so he's holding down the lid. Physics are not in his favor.
Steve
2011 is not a starting point because a bunch of peace-loving tree-hugging hipsters is not who will rule Russia ever. People who are not violent by nature do not get respect or support of the population.
2014 is a real starting point (because Russia failed to occupy or subdue Ukraine) and when russians lose this war - it will be the boiling point. Losing the war is what causes either a coup or disintegration (depending on the severity).
It was like so for the empire in 1917, for USSR in 1989, for Yeltsin in 1996 (this time it was just a coup because Ichkeriya is fairly small and not ideologically important) - and without a doubt will be massive and fatal because russians bet their whole mythology on this war alone.
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6 hours ago, Calamine Waffles said:
I think Kamil Galeev was saying a few months ago that the military is on the lowest rung in terms of power in the Russian state hierarchy, so they're mostly castrated and subservient to Moscow.
Yep. The hierarchy in there is a result of centuries of heavy polishing. People put in charge are mentally engineered, if you will, to love and obey the tsar and be ruthless to everybody who doesn't (gets you more stars). Military has absolutely no say in what happens inside the country, hence why Russia never had a single military coup in its history (unlike literally every other empire).
It's also why putin is able to meddle with everything on the frontline directly - with predictable results.
Any general is expected to just sit back and relax at his dacha, but send another human wave at a whatever map location when ordered to.
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13 hours ago, Kinophile said:
Considering theyre at least more realistic or better informed than Putler, a RU Nat coup with more competent leadership would be not good, in some ways. The end result is probably the same (retreat from Ukraine), as they are still working with the same garbage. However They believe they can stop the 10-ton Boulder Of Inevitability squishing everything with what, to us, look like better wooden wedges. So they'll try, and fail, and get squished but the squishing will become way more fanatical, violent and aggressive (which would speed up the very collapse they fear).
I doubt they will make anything more fanatical than it already is because russians right now are already peaked.
their emperor-wannabe has to work with what he has - millions of aggressive serfs, who love tsar and many are willing to commit murder for him at a price of enriching themselves (like with a washing machine abroad). Yet there's no critical mass because the absolute majority, while aggressive, are cowards when it comes to suffering consequences.
Hence no mobilization, because the emprah knows there's no point.
It's why the next generation will be very very problematic. The indoctrination russian kids go through now is downright barbaric. They literally teach them in schools and kindergartens that other people in other countries are untermenschen and it's OK, even glorious, to kill them to take what really belongs to Russia (e. g. everything).
I dread the moment when their children will be able to enlist in just 8-10 years or so.
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14 minutes ago, Huba said:
I'm not going to discuss with the general notion here, cause it isn't really my area of expertise, but this particular text I read a bit differently.
Girkin is still not criticizing Putin himself, but RU AF and Shoygu in particular. It is Shoygu who tries to make an impression that he's pushing Putin to announce mobilization, while in fact due to his incompetence it would be a disaster, and in reality he's doing everything to prevent it.
A long shot here, but reading various RU Nats texts posted here I'm still poised to think that The Tsar is kinda sacred for them, and they would rather not touch him personally. Wouldn't the coup against the 'court' be an option, the way Japanese army/ nationalists did, leaving reverend, but practically powerless Emperor on the throne?Russians can't survive without tsar leading them. Concept of a court having more power than the tsar is absolutely alien to them - they tried it only once in their history and it ended with them crowning Lenin to be the new tsar in just 6 months.
Reading so called "RU Nats" (perfectly common russians to me) I get an impression they simply live with an illusion of bad boyars surrounding the tsar, who suck at their job and if tsar is to replace them with better ones - suddenly everything will be well. Another well known classic.
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12 minutes ago, Huba said:
I'm no (bridge) engineer, but how is this supposed to be more resistant to damage than the regular bridge? These sections are floating, right? After being punctured it will just sink, and river flow will break it into pieces and that will be all she wrote. Given GMLRS at non-max distance hit literally vertically, achieving a hit shouldn't be a problem too. Or am I missing something?
After Snake Island and Chornobaivka?
Throw everything at a problem until it eventually resolves itself (or doesn't).
But floating remnants of this junk in Dnipro will certainly delay watermelon deliveries after Kherson liberation.
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3 hours ago, chuckdyke said:
It is Nature vs Nurture. Some people just won't survive if you place them in a university with the commitment to graduate inside an X number of years. Give them five acres of land and they are home for generations to come. How big is Siberia and why do they want to expand towards Western Europe?
Problem is russians are incapable of doing anything both in a "university" and "land" "biomes". It's not part of the culture or mentality.
Siberia is HUGE. Siberia is also really really rich in nature. Forests, rivers, it's all there. And yet for centuries russians did nothing to civilize it, citing it as being "unwelcome" - but, of course, deported millions of slaves from occupied countries there so they would do it instead (Gulag boss music). But slavery does not bear that kind of quality fruit.
And then you have cities like Las Vegas. Initially an empty desert, would've been a fitting set for post-apocalyptic wasteland movies - and yet now it's one of the biggest resorts in North America.
And that example puts things into perspective, eh?
Some people just want to create the best they can with what they have, some people don't, but want to have what others did for free.
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1 hour ago, Huba said:
What is amusing is how it contradicts the notions of "Ukrainians being Russians". For all the critique, Russian are rather hardy folk who for sure wouldn't surrender due to random bombing. I guess the moment you reject the Tsar's yoke you are supposed to loose all your moral qualities and change into a proper untermensch? Crazy thinking really...
No - anyone else but russians are untermenschen regardless of rejecting yoke or not.
The point is that russians are ubermenschen, gods walking the Earth - hence why they should never create anything themselves (and they don't, most still live in very medieval conditions, washing clothes in rivers, building buildings out of planks, no running water or gas etc). But everybody else, being untermenschen, are destined to be only their slaves and create everything for them. Hence why most "advanced" russian lands are those that they either occupied or the ones directly bordering countries they occupied. Hence why everything 100km east of Moscow is a barren wasteland with every town being a time portal to a few centuries back.
Maybe it really ties into their mongolian/nomadic ancestral roots where their ancestors were so used to simply taking better stuff from others but never cared about what they themselves possessed.
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51 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
A long time ago, like 8 years or more past, it was possible to encounter an educated, Western acclimated Russian civilian who would argue that Russia was not a dictatorship and was, instead, a reasonably well functioning government like in the West. This made it more difficult to discuss things that the Russian government did that were obviously anti-democraitc. And so you'd wind up wasting enormous amounts of energy on the basics before having any hope of discussing the real issue.
Now, I don't think there's many Russians like this any more. I doubt the masses who are totally ignorant of what a functioning representative government is like thinks the Russian government is anything but corrupt and repressive. They might not fully appreciate how bad it is, but they likely recognize that things have been getting worse over the years and have gotten particularly worse since this war started.
This is important because it means that Putin has squandered most of the good will he built up with his own people over 15-20 years. Just like he did with the West. This is why Putin fears general mobilization.
The stupidity of this, of course, is that Ukraine could win this war even with minimal Western aid. It would just take them a LOT longer and the suffering would be vastly worse. Similarly, Russia has already lost this war and all it can do is increase the level of misery surrounding it.
Steve
Of course you'd waste a lot of effort to get through the basics because that so called "well educated, Western acclimated russian" knows the real state of things well enough. It's his ideology to convince you and everybody else otherwise.
Has been for centuries. Hence why there's no "Western acclimated" russians at all. They will always end up creating just another Brighton Beach wherever they are and will be waiting for Russia to come and occupy it.
Similarly to how every russian, educated or not, knows that his government is extremely corrupt. Because that russian chose it to be like so. And is happy about it.
In fact according to recent polls more than 60% of russians don't even understand why they need West with its values, about 30% think West is good to get something out of (probably just materialistic things) and only 2% russians think they need democracy.
2%.
putin built nothing good, Russia was always poor and uneducated (35% russians believe Sun rotates around the Earth in 2022). But they are all very good at lying to get what they want. Or westerners are too naive to believe that everybody out there want what they consider to be a "better" life.
But it's what all neighbor countries learned the hard way a long time ago and them... us talking about real Russia seemed so weird to you lot.
The only thing that is different between Russia yesterday and Russia today is that they stopped lying.
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6 hours ago, Beleg85 said:
Hmm... @Grigb you think it is credible? Rogue Russian anarchists sounds too Bond-ish for me and smells FSB provocation. On the other hand there are certainly groups in Russia that actively opose regime and Dugin- as a symbol of pan-Russian nationalism- could be considered a natural target for them. This explanation would answer questions about strange subject of attack we asked before.
Still to carrying out bomb attack this magnitude one needs some contacts, materials and fieldcraft.
Whatever the case, I don't think Ponomaryev should be so cheerful here; it may harm Ukrainian cause. Russia may officially try to accuse Ukraine of sponsoring terrorism.
I wouldn't trust FSB agent Ponomaryov even for one moment.
In Russia you become MP only if FSB allows you to and stop being MP alive if FSB allows you to.
Especially since he was in a communist party and then in a Nazi party of Rogozin - making him directly responsible for the current war (and others).
Not to mention that these so called "partisans" delivered a strike on an average propagandist that isn't even calling the shots instead of, you know, some military base or some big guy like Solovyov.
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
Safety.
Every russian is an occupier wherever he is - because he behaves like one and should be treated as such. They do not come to some country to assimilate and accept the native culture - they come to establish an enclave that sooner or later will have russian invaders drop in there - and met with open arms.
Don't even need to go for proof far.
So booting russians out is much less riskier than allowing them to exploit the civility of a country and weaken it - which will bring countless victims and horrible suffering.