Butschi

When you lower yourself to the level of your opponent, you become that opponent! So, maybe deep down, you are Russian.

This how Ukraine wins the war, surrendering needs to be the least scary option for Russian soldiers. Work backwards from this, on more or less everything. In an ideal world shooting the blocking troops would be their next option, but I am not even sure how often that happened in 1917. I think it is more or less unheard of since.

The US is not in a state of war with Russia... technically.

Before this gets out of hand here is a translated excerpt from Zeit about German aid for Ukraine: (the original report by FAZ is behind a paywall)
So, this is not stopping support for Ukraine but telling our MoD that if they want to send additional stuff, the money has to come from somewhere, they are not getting anything on top.

What does one have to do with the other?  Not wishing to be associated with nazis used to be de rigeur.
The video itself is pretty funny at first glance (if you aren't German) by its objective similarity to past events to any outsider.  Not wanting to suggest that is a positive thing, or something that should be strengthened (perhaps stoking German reticence toward any actions that might look parallel though having a different objective) is a reasonable point of view, and does not depend on whether the opposition is comminting war crimes.
 

I imagine there are alternatives to enemy brutality besides playing nazis

Yes X is not Twitter anymore. I deactivated my account when a previous banned person got his account back. Lies are their definition of Free Speech. 

These kind of memes make me highly uncomfortable. Why play up a connection to the Wehrmacht when the other side’s information operations already paint Ukraine and NATO as Nazi Germany 2.0?

A real increase in surrenders is how Ukraine wins this war. Russian POWS need to be eating good borscht, and watching soccer games. It seems wrong, but that is the winning play here. 
If I can be forgiven an attack of overwhelming optimism...Russian POWs going back to Russia with memories of relatively positive treatment might be of at least some help with the post war situation, maybe, if the dominoes fell just right.

I agree the reason the Germans rather surrendered to the Western Allies instead of surrendering to the Soviets. Also NATO support may have some protocols and caveats which we can only speculate about. 

There is an obvious distinction between the soldiers being used to prosecute this war and the conscripts who are a political liability to the regime and clearly unmotivated to resist even when their own side of the border is invaded. 
I have the same luxury as you apparently, for someone so gung ho about killing Russians you don't seem to be any closer to doing so than I am. 

Once again, your hatred of every single one of them is noted. it's pretty much the only thing you post about. 

I know your strong feelings on the matter, but there does seem to be a fundamental difference between the type of Russian soldier willing to surrender versus the ones that kill themselves instead. 

Not making cheeky Nazi memes is a very low bar.

I made no such assumption. The person Germany is now looking for with an arrest warrant is believed to be Ukrainian citizen. A possible involvement of the Ukrainian military is not a conspiracy theory but I referred to an article in "Die Zeit" (one of the news magazines involved in the investigation).
https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2024-07/nordstream-anschlag-ermittlungen-festnahme

It is in German, here a translation of the part I was referring to:
 
That's not really news and no where near conclusive (as the article itself says) but it can't be ruled out, either - which is why I said "possibly even with support from the Ukrainian military". It is certainly not a conspiracy theory.
True but stupid people do stupid things and sometimes even intelligent people do stupid things. Even if the Ukrainian military was actually involved in some way that doesn't mean this group of people were professionals. It was still relatively early on in the war and maybe they simply were patriots and/or wanted to show their support of Ukraine. Stupid? Maybe, unthinkable? No.
Look, we don't know that much more than we knew earlier, on the other hand, as I said before, I doubt our judiciary system would have gone ahead with that arrest warrant without solid evidence to back it. That is not a proof, either, but makes this version a candidate to at least seriously consider.
As you say yourself, "we don't have any good information to go on". Ukraine, like others, had the means, motivation and opportunity to do it and so like in any criminal case I suggest we simply keep an open mind and not exclude leads just because we don't like where they are going or want someone else to be behind this.

Steve, before answering, may I humbly ask you how I managed to trigger you so much? Here I am giving my take on the latest development because I thought that as a German, my perspective might be interesting to some. And before I know what happens you come and accuse me of making false assumptions, spreading conspiracy theories and believing all sorts of nonsense.

I did agree with you that there isn't that much more new stuff and would have left it at that. I answered @billbindccomment on my post briefly but said that I deem it speculative and that you are not happy about the topic, meaning that I wouldn't give any further answers.
So... err... yes, seriously. If, so far, you weren't aware that we Germans are obsessed with laws, burocracy and regulating that kind of stuff... well, welcome to Germany! I didn't dig deep into this but let's have an excerpt from the first page I found on the topic:
That applies to German ships hence my speculative answer. Generally, if you think the German Wasserpolizei isn't interested in such things - oh well, read this:
Fining people for small violations is, unfortunately, one of the major tasks our police has, so much so that they are sometimes expected to fulfill a quota. Fun fact: The Andromeda sailed from Rügen, too. And the last thing you want in such a case is to be stopped for such a simple thing when you have explosives on board, right?
As for the second part:
Let me simply say that
a) I have no clue why you tink I am conviced it was "ultra secrete and successful Ukrainian special forces types", when what I actually wrote was "Those people weren't necessarily SOF types or really connected to the military." That is kind of the opposite... ? And non-pros do non-pro things, right? Also, I didn't even think about the police but of other sailors raising an eyebrow or two when seeing and hearing these guys in the harbour. You don't need an overzealous police when you have suspicious neighbors. Which is what we Germans are in general...
b) I am absolutely ok with not having to manage your financial portfolio. In fact, I'd strictly advise against it.
Shall we leave it at that? I have zero interest in either getting banned or being marked as a nutcase. 🙂

If anything it looks, to me at least, like much less of a gamble than it did a week ago. A week ago I was concerned that the Russians might not divert significant forces to respond to it, that the informational effects of it might be negative, and that Ukraine may have diverted significant strength from more important areas to conduct the operation. Now I know that the Russians have diverted significant forces to respond, the informational effects have been mostly positive, and it looks like the Ukrainians are only using a handful of brigades for this operation.
Obviously this operation isn't going to be decisive. But no single operation is in a war this large.

I think people really underestimate the morale impact for the Ukrainians, its been shared before but this successful attack has happened after months of hard defence and the notion that that would be how it play out for the rest of the war. This operation has showed that Ukraine can attack, and do it well. 

Russian morale meanwhile seems to be actively going between coping and telling us how its all part of the plan to actively dooming that Russian sovereign territory is now under occupation. This attack is perfect for making it clear to the Russians that they really do need to go home. If Ukraine can take a large chunk of territory then they could quite literally push for a settlement that involves exchange. An increasingly war weary Russia, Putin or not might just take that. 

Its a shift in the right direction for sure and an excellent use of well equipped brigades that can practise mobile, high tempo operations without running into concentrated minefields. To me its so much more efficient. 

Steve, before answering, may I humbly ask you how I managed to trigger you so much? Here I am giving my take on the latest development because I thought that as a German, my perspective might be interesting to some. And before I know what happens you come and accuse me of making false assumptions, spreading conspiracy theories and believing all sorts of nonsense.

I did agree with you that there isn't that much more new stuff and would have left it at that. I answered @billbindccomment on my post briefly but said that I deem it speculative and that you are not happy about the topic, meaning that I wouldn't give any further answers.
So... err... yes, seriously. If, so far, you weren't aware that we Germans are obsessed with laws, burocracy and regulating that kind of stuff... well, welcome to Germany! I didn't dig deep into this but let's have an excerpt from the first page I found on the topic:
That applies to German ships hence my speculative answer. Generally, if you think the German Wasserpolizei isn't interested in such things - oh well, read this:
Fining people for small violations is, unfortunately, one of the major tasks our police has, so much so that they are sometimes expected to fulfill a quota. Fun fact: The Andromeda sailed from Rügen, too. And the last thing you want in such a case is to be stopped for such a simple thing when you have explosives on board, right?
As for the second part:
Let me simply say that
a) I have no clue why you tink I am conviced it was "ultra secrete and successful Ukrainian special forces types", when what I actually wrote was "Those people weren't necessarily SOF types or really connected to the military." That is kind of the opposite... ? And non-pros do non-pro things, right? Also, I didn't even think about the police but of other sailors raising an eyebrow or two when seeing and hearing these guys in the harbour. You don't need an overzealous police when you have suspicious neighbors. Which is what we Germans are in general...
b) I am absolutely ok with not having to manage your financial portfolio. In fact, I'd strictly advise against it.
Shall we leave it at that? I have zero interest in either getting banned or being marked as a nutcase. 🙂

I made no such assumption. The person Germany is now looking for with an arrest warrant is believed to be Ukrainian citizen. A possible involvement of the Ukrainian military is not a conspiracy theory but I referred to an article in "Die Zeit" (one of the news magazines involved in the investigation).
https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2024-07/nordstream-anschlag-ermittlungen-festnahme

It is in German, here a translation of the part I was referring to:
 
That's not really news and no where near conclusive (as the article itself says) but it can't be ruled out, either - which is why I said "possibly even with support from the Ukrainian military". It is certainly not a conspiracy theory.
True but stupid people do stupid things and sometimes even intelligent people do stupid things. Even if the Ukrainian military was actually involved in some way that doesn't mean this group of people were professionals. It was still relatively early on in the war and maybe they simply were patriots and/or wanted to show their support of Ukraine. Stupid? Maybe, unthinkable? No.
Look, we don't know that much more than we knew earlier, on the other hand, as I said before, I doubt our judiciary system would have gone ahead with that arrest warrant without solid evidence to back it. That is not a proof, either, but makes this version a candidate to at least seriously consider.
As you say yourself, "we don't have any good information to go on". Ukraine, like others, had the means, motivation and opportunity to do it and so like in any criminal case I suggest we simply keep an open mind and not exclude leads just because we don't like where they are going or want someone else to be behind this.

Honestly, and no offense meant, it feels like you want it to be the Russians and so can't accept evidence that points in a different direction.
Re your point 1: At least one member of that team was a specialist in diving to these depths.
Thinking that so many people in the German judiciary system plus the journalists from at least three different news outlets are all on the Russian payroll is quite ridiculous. Try to see it from a different point of view: Evidence pointing towards Ukraine is really inconvenient for our government, especially with a bunch of elections coming up that sees the Putin supporters in front. I know, Scholzing and all but we did send a lot of money and equipment to Ukraine. Learning that Ukrainians blew up the pipelines - possibly even with support from the Ukrainian military - would put the government into a difficult position. Well, an even worse position than it is in now. In addition, aggravating the Polish government would have been kind of satisfying when it was still PiS, I guess, but we really don't want this to happen with the new government.
So, whatever the truth will turn out to be in the end, I think it is very unlikely that this arrest warrant would have been sent if there wasn't solid evidence to back it.

Honestly, and no offense meant, it feels like you want it to be the Russians and so can't accept evidence that points in a different direction.
Re your point 1: At least one member of that team was a specialist in diving to these depths.
Thinking that so many people in the German judiciary system plus the journalists from at least three different news outlets are all on the Russian payroll is quite ridiculous. Try to see it from a different point of view: Evidence pointing towards Ukraine is really inconvenient for our government, especially with a bunch of elections coming up that sees the Putin supporters in front. I know, Scholzing and all but we did send a lot of money and equipment to Ukraine. Learning that Ukrainians blew up the pipelines - possibly even with support from the Ukrainian military - would put the government into a difficult position. Well, an even worse position than it is in now. In addition, aggravating the Polish government would have been kind of satisfying when it was still PiS, I guess, but we really don't want this to happen with the new government.
So, whatever the truth will turn out to be in the end, I think it is very unlikely that this arrest warrant would have been sent if there wasn't solid evidence to back it.

Have we excluded the possibility of it being a courtesy flag, while in Sweden? Like this one:

 

Not overlooked certainly, but from my POV the experience was 'Russia must be behind this' and some (not bad) sources were disqualified out of hand while pointing to Germanies kompromat potential becoming dependent on RU gas in the first place. 
I agree it is still no smoking gun, but the story about the boat and the divers which was valued as probably fantasy by (imo) several otherwise wise people, is getting 'more traction' if I may be un-Dutch indirect :). 
Certainly could still be a Russian directed operation, but it may also not be. That's a real contingency and better not to be surprised may such a thing turn out to be true; fortunately I think Germany has already stated whatever it was they still support Ukraine in it's fight against war of aggression. Anyway there will still be something to solve.
Edit: the new part of the story is that German authorities have independently verified information from foreign (and domestic) sources and came to the conclusion that there is enough hard evidence to send out an arrest warrant for an Ukrainian individual who is an experienced deep diver, who was/is living in Poland. However Poland stated Germany has made a mistake in issuing the arrest warrant and didn't supply it to the border guard equivalent, so now the individual has managed to flee from Poland to Ukraine. Ergo, PL doesn't seem to be very motivated to cooperate with the German fact finding / justice mission. Germany looks at it like it was an act of sabotage against critical infrastructure.
Being partly Dutch owned, we also have some looks but being pragmatics I guess we also feel that as it wasn't going to operate again anyway and not an attack against 'Dutch infrastructure' it doesn't really matter much anymore apart from being vigilant about the same thing not happening again by whomever.

As some of us might have noticed, a next step has unfolded in the investigation into the Nordstream sabotage.
https://nos.nl/artikel/2533281-waarom-duitsland-als-enige-land-wel-blijft-jagen-op-nord-stream-saboteurs
It is one of the few/only subjects I feel that this forum in majority stepped over information and arguments and believed what they wanted to believe.
The sponsors/beneficiaries behind the sabotage are still unknown, so fundamentally all is still up in the air. But some things people don't like to consider are now more in the open to consider again, if I may say so.
I for one think it is prudent to classify some of the original information about this attack, which hinted at a 'Ukrainian direction', as serious + trustworthy. Mind, there is zero proof or indication that Presidential level/Zelensky was involved. It could also still be something in which Russia has meddled. But it also could be something in which Russia didn't mettle.
Some might feel like just stepping over the whole thing and leave it be. But that would be similar to telling an American supporting Biden and having info that Ukrainian entities might somehow be involved in an assassination against Trump, to just step over it and leave it be; it's probably just internal kompromat.