Let's take a break from Thatcherlad arguing with Marxlad and talk about geopolitics. So what do we reckon about this year's bi-annual lurching forward of the doomsday clock?
Standing back from the situation it seems obvious that US led brinkmanship and almost psychopathic foreign policy only makes a bad situation worse. The extent to which the media portrays Russia as the unambiguous bad guys while NATO continues to push them borders on completely delusional, like saying the sky is green or the sea is made of sand. Russia and Putin are no saints by any means, but what did we (the West) expect by constantly encroaching on their security interests?
The UK and EU badly need to distance themselves from America, I feel like they are going to become dangerous friends to have if moments like this and China's overtures on Taiwan play out as their own Suez crisis.
>Ex-Crimea Prosecutor Poklonskaya Slams Russia's Pro-War 'Z' Symbol
>Natalia Poklonskaya has issued a harsh criticism of the pro-war Z symbol that has spread across Russia, the latest anti-war comments from the former Crimean prosecutor and onetime Russian lawmaker. The Latin letter — first seen displayed on Russian military vehicles entering Poklonskaya’s country of birth — has come to symbolize the public’s support for Russian troops. The Z has been prominently displayed on buildings, flash mobs organized at schools and universities, merchandise sold online and even on the Russian Easter cake known as kulich.
>“This letter Z symbolizes tragedy and grief for both Russia and Ukraine,” Poklonskaya, who had staunchly supported Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, said in an interview with a popular YouTube channel Tuesday. The comments sparked widespread criticism, including from Poklonskaya’s immediate boss at Russia’s state agency for international outreach, Rossotrudnichestvo, where she is deputy director after serving a tumultuous term in Russia’s lower house of parliament. Rossotrudnichestvo head Yevgeny Primakov on Wednesday said the letters Z and V are “symbols of the very liberation of Ukraine from the obvious evil of daft militant wogs and bandits.”
>“What I am saying is that it is dangerous to blindly worship any symbols — history does not like that,” Poklonskaya wrote in response to the criticism. Poklonskaya’s break with Russia’s official line that it is carrying out a “special military operation” to “de-Nazify and demilitarize” Ukraine is practically unheard of for a sitting official. Last week, she referred to Russia’s invasion of her native Ukraine as a “catastrophe.”
>“People are dying, houses and entire cities are destroyed [leaving] millions of refugees. Bodies and souls are mutilated. My heart is bursting with pain. My two native countries are killing each other, that’s not what I wanted and it’s not what I want,” she said in a video address to an international forum. Earlier in April, Poklonskaya said Ukrainian society has “changed” in the eight years since the war with pro-Russian separatists broke out in the east and that Ukrainians “would not greet Russia with flowers. Ukraine is not Russia,” she told a popular YouTube blogger.
I really need to stop seeking out pro-Putin/Kremlin shit online because it's poisoning my brain and I'm going to grind my teeth to dust if I'm not careful. By their reckoning the Azov Battalion is more like an entire army group, it's only bad when American bombs blow up your flat and I've yet to see one mention of the 5,000,000 refugees the conflict has created from any of these pricks.
Why on earth are you even doing that in the first place you div? I get riled up about fisherpersons but I don't go seeking their shite out do I.
Anyway it's not like the propaganda from the West is any lass blatant. My favourite is have totally innocuous sub-rudgwicks like r/interestingasfuck keep getting daily posts about the heroic Ukraine boys even when there's hardly anything interesting about it, let alone "as fuck". Just glaringly obvious.
Anyway from what I heard the Azov lot were almost entirely wiped out, and you know, that's very handy for Mr Zelensky considering their leader is the one who made death threats toward him. Make no mistake Zelensky isn't an idiot, this war makes for a very good opportunity to get rid of those far right thorns in his side. You don't have to pretend they weren't real to simp for poor innocent Ukraine, they won't be for much longer.
The play going on here would make a Skaven warlord wince.
>Some supermarkets are limiting how much cooking oil customers are able to buy as supplies are hit by war in Ukraine.
>Tesco is allowing three items per customer. Waitrose and Morrisons have limited shoppers to two items each. The majority of the UK's sunflower oil comes from Ukraine and disruption to exports has led to some shortages and an increased demand for alternatives.
>>38272 Does this have anything to do with all the flavoured oils they've been bringing out and putting everywhere? I can confirm eggs cooked with chilli oil is lovely.
>>38280 If you ask me skimping on oil is like skimping on the burger bread. Often the cheap meats are outright better but oil is a base that'll change the whole meal, it's not even like there's a huge price attached to this.
>>38283 I don't see the point in paying over the odds for triple pressed extra virgin olive oil to use it for cooking when cheaper alternatives would suffice. I can understand buying the expensive stuff if you're using it for dressing or as a dip, but not to fry with.
>>38297 I know it was reported, but even watching it happen I still can't believe he got that guy to basically confess to the whole murder plot over the phone like that.
>Israel has reacted with fury after Russia's foreign minister claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler "had Jewish blood".
>Sergei Lavrov made the comments to try to justify Russia's portrayal of Ukraine as "Nazi" despite the fact that its president is Jewish.
>Israel's foreign ministry summoned Russia's ambassador for "clarification" and demanded an apology
Real piss take by now. Jews, shmews, eh?
All that said, Hitler put great effort into obfuscating and destryoing a lot of evidence about his ancestry, to the point of sanitising church registers and public records around his hometown after he came to power. It stands to argue that no purebred Aryan would have had to go to such lengths. There have even been studies by historians pointing towards Hitler at least at some point a few generations prior having had Jewish ancestry, but they were then ruled inconclusive again.
To use that in the current situation with Ukraine is incredibly outrageous though.
>Bono, the frontman of the Irish rock group U2 and his bandmate the Edge have performed a 40-minute concert in a subway station in Kyiv and praised Ukrainians fighting for their freedom from Russia.
>>38392 This is all getting a bit Anglo-Poland pact. Am I the only fucker who's studied contemporary European history? We're well renowned for making pacts with countries our foreign intelligence agencies tell us are about to be attacked by a country we want to go to war with, something we picked up from the Scots.
The military industrial complex might be about to spool up, lads. If you have any engineering, electrical or mechanical expertise you're going to get seconded to manufacture tanks soon, payment in chocolate and nylon tight rations. Keep calm and carry on.
>>38396 I think I’ve said this earlier in the thread, but Russia will be completely unable to lay a glove on Finland or Sweden for a very long time. Putin has committed about 75% of his armed forces to the invasion of Ukraine and it’s been a mess, there simply aren’t the resources to attack any one else.
>>38396 I'm surprised we didn't have deals like that already. I guess Finland might be neutral, but Sweden feels very much like it would be on our side in any war. On some level, I think most people do think of Russia and Ukraine as being quite similar, but if Russia attacks Sweden, that's World War III whether we sign a deal or not.
In other news, I am losing faith in the whole sanctions tactic. The BBC website wrote about the sanctions recently:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61381241 >At a glance, Russia has so far been able to fend off an economic collapse following its invasion of Ukraine.
>It has been hammered by sanctions introduced by Western countries since February.
>The initial shock forced the stock market in Russia to close temporarily and saw people queuing up at cash machines, worried about their savings.
>The rouble has, however, returned to pre-war levels, due to careful management by Russia's central bank.
>The country has also managed to avoid defaulting on its foreign debts.
>President Putin has insisted that the West's "economic blitzkrieg" has failed.
Meanwhile, the economy is going tits-up everywhere else. I guess it can be heartening to think that the credit crunch in 2008 harmed the economy by a few percent and it still fucked us pretty much permanently, so even a 10-15% economic shitstorm could kill Russia, but nobody is willing to provide any sort of timescale for when this might happen. Fighting back against the invasion of Ukraine with a load of political policies that will really sting in autumn 2023 isn't really the killer blow these sanctions have been touted as.
Sanctions are extremely useful in preventing Russia from replenishing their lost military assets. We can't reliably stop them from importing essential dual-use goods that they need to fix tanks and build jet engines, but we can cut off the foreign currency they need to pay for it. Russia has very limited domestic manufacturing capacity and is dependent on imported goods for the most basic of products, because their economy is heavily centred around energy and mining. They might mine vast amounts of steel, but they don't have the machinery to make nuts and bolts.
The Kremlin has carefully prepared for sanctions by cutting public spending, hoarding foreign currency and imposing market controls, but they don't have much runway and there's really nothing they can do to work around trade restrictions. Putin doesn't care if the average Russian gets poorer, but he very much does care that he's running out of bullets.
The impact of the war in Ukraine on energy prices has been somewhat overstated. Brent crude hit a peak of $85/bbl in October last year, mostly due to a post-COVID surge in demand. Eastern Europe will be severely affected by restrictions on the availability of Russian gas, the timing isn't brilliant, but most of the increase in energy prices would have happened anyway.
Sanctions won't necessarily cripple the Russian economy, they certainly won't get rid of Putin, but they are rapidly crippling his military capabilities.
>>38392 >President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday it was not possible for NATO-member Turkey to support plans by Sweden and Finland to join the pact given that the Nordic countries were "home to many daft militant wog organisations".
>Though Turkey has officially supported NATO enlargement since it joined the U.S.-led alliance 70 years ago, its opposition could pose a problem for Sweden and Finland given new members need unanimous agreement.
>they are rapidly crippling his military capabilities.
They've been rapidly crippling Russian military capabilities for close to three months now, you berk. Positively light speed.
Meanwhile, the Russians continue to gain ground in absolute terms. The Ukranians have made some very impressive counterattacks, but they are, still nevertheless making a net loss of territory. Or in other words... Losing.
The news is calling this a "dynamic stalemate".
Propaganda and lies mate. Still, we've got to keep the prole's eyes on something while the economy crumbles at home, I suppose.
>They've been rapidly crippling Russian military capabilities for close to three months now, you berk. Positively light speed.
How long do you imagine that wars take?
>Meanwhile, the Russians continue to gain ground in absolute terms.
The Russians currently control more Ukrainian territory than they did on the 23rd of February, but they control a lot less than they did on the 23rd of March or the 23rd of April. Your mum has more teeth than when she was born, but much fewer than she did before she started smoking crack. That's a net gain of teeth, but your mum cannot be said to be gaining teeth.
Russia is running out of men, vehicles, ammunition and morale faster than Ukraine. It does not take a military genius to understand the inevitable conclusion of such an imbalance. Ukraine have retaken almost all territory within Kharkiv city limits and are in places reaching within six miles of the Russian border. They are rapidly advancing the Lysychansk salient which threatens to disconnect the Izium axis from Luhansk and have almost fully encircled Popasna. That is not a stalemate, no matter what some gonk on the telly might say.
>>38401 If Russia retreat due to lack of resources, Ukraine earns a Pyrrhic victory by attrition. As the Finns know well, a win is a win even if it's not technically a win. It'll make them think twice in future.
Making things hard for Russia to hold territory is the best way to force a retreat as Russia doesn't have the resources to sustain that, tit for tat, long term. Ukraine does, because it has the backing of NATO.
How much of Ukraine Russia currently occupies is shrinking as they consolidate their efforts in places they think they can hold.
>>38401 >"We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."
Russia lost this war when their fantasy of a two day sprint into Kiev failed absolutely. Everything since then has been a face saving exercise, the grim cost of which is tens of thousands dead on both sides and 5-6 million Ukrainian refugees.
>>38401 Well, sort of.
It seems more like they're not wasting any manpower trying to push the Russians back out of empty farmland and rural villages, instead preferring to let Russia take massive losses in failed offensives.
From the start, Ukraine have allowed Russia to advance, then used a choke point to break the supply line and create an isolated pocket. It isn't a new strategy - the Finns used it to great success during the continuation war - but the Russians seem to be extremely slow to figure it out. There's a big difference between taking territory and walking into a trap.
>Georgia's separatist South Ossetia region to hold referendum on joining Russia
>"Anatoly Bibilov signed a decree on holding a referendum in the Republic of South Ossetia," his office said in a statement, citing his people's "historic aspiration" to join Russia. South Ossetia was at the centre of the Russian-Georgian war in 2008 after which the Kremlin recognised the territory – along with another separatist region, Abkhazia – as an independent state and stationed military bases there. "We are coming home," Bibilov said on messaging app Telegram. "The time has come to unite once and for all. "South Ossetia and Russia will be together. This is the start of a big new story," the outgoing leader added.
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20220513-georgia-s-separatist-south-ossetia-region-to-hold-referendum-on-joining-russia
If Putin keep this up then pretty soon NATO will just run out of countries to expand into. It's genius.
>A man has left the mum of his two children for a young Ukrainian refugee who lived in the family home for just 10 days before tensions boiled over.
>Tony Ganett, 29, left Lorona, 28, after falling for Sofiia Karkadym who had escaped the horrors of her besieged hometown of Lviv. Tony, a security guard, initially signed up for the government's rehoming scheme but found the progress was too slow and reached out to refugees on social media instead.
Lads you've all been played. Azov Nazis have been fighting the Russian ' separatists' for years. Norn Irn troubles with communism. Clinton and Biden have been using 'business interests' within Ukraine, as much as they used within the so called Arab Spring. Putin saw this as a threat, with an excuse of eradicating Azov Nazis but also to push military might against an economic threat. This has now been passed on to us as oligarchs shift their funds and the real war isn't counted in deaths from bombs and bullets but food shortages and desire for truth.
Go away mate. You haven't uncovered The Truth, you've just concocted your own reality to make yourself feel clever. I assume that the mods are all out on the lash, because you've been getting away with murder over the last couple of hours.
>>38466 Does he have incredibly pointy fingernails, or is that her hand? It looks horrifying either way. If I was the original wife, I would leave just to avoid getting my eyes sliced open like Un Chien Andalou.
>>38467>>38470 I'm not sure what relevance the ugly Hitchens brother has to do with this. Given his opinions on the western interventions that took place before his death, I doubt he'd oppose the current stance NATO and pals have taken.
