War: Russia vs. Ukraine?

[Dashenka]

And now the US traded a woman knowingly carrying drugs over the border like it is a normal thing, for an arms dealer.


Not often am I speechless... But here I am.

[The Lovely Tsaritsa]

Im very stunned, too.

[Beorning]

So that's just between the EU and the US. Internally, the EU has some cracks as well. They're threatening to cut subsidy budgets to Hungary because the country is corrupt and all that. Fine, says Hungary, we'll look to the East then. Which is something the EU really doesn't want either. They already gave Hungary some freedoms when it came to Russian oil and now have given them a lot more power.

Well, to be honest, Hungary was "looking to the East" way before that. There's a reason why Hungary refused to take Ukraine's side ever since the war started.

I don't know about Poland but their government was under scrutiny as well from the EU but with Poland now sheltering one or many millions of Ukrainian refugees, said government has a big trump card up their sleeves. 'You let us do our thing, or we close the border and send them back.' I'm not sure how likely this is to happen but the simple fact it's a possibility now shows how fragile those alliances are.

It likely *won't* happen. Polish government *did* try playing this card in their dealings with the EU, but the EU didn't budge.

Finally, unrelated to the above, everybody saying that Russia is ill prepared for the winter. I kindly ask you to do some research into the Battle of Stalingrad. The Russian army held off the Nazi's in freezing temperatures. Many of those soldiers were drafted as well. And I agree those soldiers are not motivated to fight, not at all. But they are motivated to live. To see their families again. And if that means killing everybody in sight, I find it insulting to think they are somehow less capable than the Ukrainians, who are also drafted. A fact that people seem to forget.

Ukrainians want to defend their homeland, the Russians just want to go home to their families. Saying the Russians are not motivated is a bit silly.

Well, Stalingrad took place around 80 years ago...

And I'd say that there's a huge difference in motivation between "I want to defend my country" and "I want to survive and go home". When you want just to survive, fighting is the last thing you want to do.

And now the US traded a woman knowingly carrying drugs over the border like it is a normal thing, for an arms dealer.

Not often am I speechless... But here I am.

I don't understand why you have problem with it, to be honest?

[Dashenka]

.And I'd say that there's a huge difference in motivation between "I want to defend my country" and "I want to survive and go home". When you want just to survive, fighting is the last thing you want to do.

I don't understand why you have problem with it, to be honest?

Eighty years ago and the situation is roughly the same. The weapons are more modern the situation is the same. Except now it's the Russians doing the attacking.

If you want to survive, fighting is the last thing you want to do. I agree. But if you don't fight in the Russian army, you'll get arrested and killed and God knows what will happen to your family... Fighting for your family, in my books, trumps fighting for a bit of dirt and soil and ruined buildings. If my house got bombed and shelled, I would fight for it up to a point. When my wife if threatened, I'll kill everything the people threatening my wife tell me to kill.


And my problem with letting an arms dealer who caused suffering to hundreds of thousands free in trade of a stupid woman smuggling drugs into Russia is not clear to you?

One caused suffering to innocents, the other was arogant or stupid enough to bring drugs into Russia. I frankly don't understand why not more people are outraged by this.

[Al Terego]

And my problem with letting an arms dealer who caused suffering to hundreds of thousands free in trade of a stupid woman smuggling drugs into Russia is not clear to you?

One caused suffering to innocents, the other was arogant or stupid enough to bring drugs into Russia. I frankly don't understand why not more people are outraged by this.

Perhaps some of those people are still trying to wrap their heads around a 1:1027 exchange.

[persephone325]

And now the US traded a woman knowingly carrying drugs over the border like it is a normal thing, for an arms dealer.


Not often am I speechless... But here I am.

Same. Especially when Marc Fogel was detained for the same thing, apparently. He's 61 years old, for fuck's sake. Paul Whelan is also still imprisoned for a "crime that never occurred,” he said in an interview. And he's been there for 4 years. These poor men. It's unfair.

They say they're working hard to free these men, but all we have is their word - and that doesn't mean anything to me, personally. If Whelan's case is being treated differently, then I can understand why it's so hard to get him out. He's basically a political prisoner. But why Griner over Fogel? He's an older man who was detained longer - back in August 2021.

I think we know why, and I just have to roll my eyes and sigh...

[Oniya]

Because she's a civilian?

[persephone325]

Well, they're all civilians. Fogel is a teacher and Whelan is a former marine who is a US, Irish, British and Canadian citizen. Not sure where he was living when he was arrested - not that I think it matters. I hope the other countries he has citizenship in are doing something. But I haven't looked into it.

But it seems like they prioritized her cause there was such an outcry, plus she's "famous" or whatever. I don't follow basketball, but I know that people thought of her as some kind of rising star, I think? I'm not 100% sure.

[firepyre]

And now the US traded a woman knowingly carrying drugs over the border like it is a normal thing, for an arms dealer.


Not often am I speechless... But here I am.

The deal is so bad on the face of it that you have to wonder what they're actually getting out of it behind the smoke and mirrors.

[Dashenka]

Votes and ratings.

[Vekseid]

The deal is so bad on the face of it that you have to wonder what they're actually getting out of it behind the smoke and mirrors.

My impression is Biden feels Griner has a lot of life to live yet, and Bout is basically useless.

The US president seems to be rather willing to take political hits like this. Also, elections are over - they aren't gong to shift a single vote, except perhaps Griner's.

Not being a nuclear engineer, or a government inspector - and indeed unaware that we had even been allowed/allowing these inspections:

We know how many devices they have.  We know that they have a working delivery system.  Can we tell if the devices themselves would detonate?

Ramping this back down a few orders of magnitude:  We've seen the gun, we know there are bullets in it, but are the firing pin and primer intact?  (I'm assuming that a simple radiation detector would eliminate the possibility that the missiles we counted were literal hollow tubes.)

Well, to pick one component for example, initiators. They are made of Polonium-210, with a half-life of ~140 days. Their configurations are highly secret - the only one that is public knowledge is Little Boy's 'urchin'. No inspector is going to get to see what another country's initiator looks like, or be able to determine what state it is in. It would be dangerous to do so, even.

But without changing it out every several months, those nukes are duds.

Similarly with other components. Tritium has a 12-year half-life. The presence of so much radiation degrades timing components so plutonium charges need to be replaced on a similar schedule to the tritium.

To be clear, a dud is a relative term. Something within an order of magnitude of Tianjin or so.

[Dashenka]

My impression is Biden feels Griner has a lot of life to live yet, and Bout is basically useless.

No sorry, I'm not having that. The man is a criminal, responsible for God knows how many deaths world wide. Strange definition of useless, I've certainly not heard before. They say his doing is responsible for the school bombing in Beslan many years ago. He's in the same category as Bin Laden, Hussein and Khadaffi. They certainly weren't classified as useless.

Griner is, I'm just going to say it, a black lesbian female. Three flies in one big swat.

If she had been a single white male construction worker, she'd still be in that penal colony in Mordovia. This is a political move based on votes and ratings and it's going to backfire massively when Bout and his network will start shipping weapons for Russia. Biden needs the popularity especially now that the elections were so close and so many people are complaining. He's now won the votes of all the BLM people, the black community and the LGBTQ community.

At the expensive of all the lives Bout has taken.

And every life taken from now caused by Bout, even remotely, is on Biden and his administration.

[persephone325]

He's now won the votes of all the BLM people, the black community and the LGBTQ community.

Well, BLM was proven to be a massive scam. And anyone who still believes it wasn't... I don't know what to tell you. lol And his approval rating has been falling, so there's that.

But, yeah. This feels like a raw deal and I can only hope that the fucking Merchant of Death won't be back on his feet so quickly. But only time will tell, unfortunately...

[TheGlyphstone]

By that logic, he has lost the votes of all the white people, the straight community, and the male community.

[Lustful Bride]

Some good news to warm the soul.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/12/ukraines-transgender-correspondent-become-local-legend/

[Azuresun]

Finally, unrelated to the above, everybody saying that Russia is ill prepared for the winter. I kindly ask you to do some research into the Battle of Stalingrad. The Russian army held off the Nazi's in freezing temperatures. Many of those soldiers were drafted as well. And I agree those soldiers are not motivated to fight, not at all. But they are motivated to live. To see their families again. And if that means killing everybody in sight, I find it insulting to think they are somehow less capable than the Ukrainians, who are also drafted. A fact that people seem to forget.

Can we just once and for all stop buying into Russian nationalist mythmaking, and just KILL the story of General Winter? Slay it and drive a stake through its heart? The way some people talk about Russia, you'd think they have Queen Elsa as a military advisor.


In WW2:

-The Russians were the defenders, and fighting for their homeland against an army hellbent on destroying them, where the choices were to fight or die. Sound familiar?

--The Russians had much shorter supply lines.

--They were the entire USSR rather than just Russia.

--They were facing an undersupplied invasion that was counting on a shock victory to force a quick surrender (and nearly got it), and which Hitler launched later in the year than his generals advised.

--A lucky spy report dispelled fears of a Japanese invasion from the East, freeing up those soldiers to attack Germany.

--They were getting massive logistic support from Britain and the USA, something that Russia doesn't really talk about when mythologising their past. Who has that advantage in this war?

--And lest we forget--when the USSR tried actually invading another, much smaller, country during winter, they got spanked and massively underperformed.

Winter is on the side of whoever is best prepared for winter. Specifically, the side that didn't have their budget for warm coats turned into a superyacht.

Ukrainians want to defend their homeland, the Russians just want to go home to their families. Saying the Russians are not motivated is a bit silly.

Thing is, an objective of "survive" can also be accomplished by surrendering, deserting, faking injury, or by half-assing actual combat and taking as few risks as possible. Dogged death-or-glory tactics like Stalingrad are very counter-productive to a soldier who just wants to survive in a war that he doesn't have a stake in.

Well, BLM was proven to be a massive scam. And anyone who still believes it wasn't... I don't know what to tell you. lol

Wow, that's a familiar style of conspiracy vagueposting. Show your citations, or retract the point.

[Vekseid]

If she had been a single white male construction worker, she'd still be in that penal colony in Mordovia. This is a political move based on votes and ratings

I realize you have no idea how US politics work, but if this was about ratings it would have been announced before the election, not after. He knew this would be unpopular.

and it's going to backfire massively when Bout and his network will start shipping weapons for Russia.

The dude sold Russian weapons to others. Not the other way around.

Biden needs the popularity especially now that the elections were so close and so many people are complaining.

I am morbidly curious why you think he needs popularity right now. The midterms are over. He's got 51 votes in the senate. As long a Sinema keeps her committee positions the Republicans can't do anything to stop his appointments.

He's now won the votes of all the BLM people, the black community and the LGBTQ community.

Assuming he runs again (and that's a big assumption), I doubt this will be very remembered in two years.

At the expensive of all the lives Bout has taken.

This is hyperbole.

And every life taken from now caused by Bout, even remotely, is on Biden and his administration.

Every weapon he smuggles out of Russia is one that doesn't get used on Ukraine. If they have anything left remotely serviceable for export.

[Vekseid]

Well, BLM was proven to be a massive scam. And anyone who still believes it wasn't... I don't know what to tell you.

One, this is off topic.

Two, you should be able to cite your sources. This is a debate forum not, as mentioned, about vagueposting.

That scammers were involved in a movement does not make the movement itself a scam. The right wing in the US is so thoroughly littered with what amounts to scams BLM looks pristine in comparison. This doesn't make conservatism itself a scam. Any more than Trump or Rick Scott's mucking with Republican financing makes the Republican party a massive scam.

[persephone325]

Wow, that's a familiar style of conspiracy vagueposting. Show your citations, or retract the point.

Not sure what you're talking about, honestly. It was proven to be a scam. If there are people that still believe it was not, then I don't know what they're thinking. It's just a generalization.

It looks like smaller chapters may still exist, but the main couple behind it used the money they made to buy themselves a $6 million dollar house. The total they stole seems to be $10 million dollars. The movement took a heavy blow from that and stopped being televised. If that's not fraud, then I don't know what is.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-lives-matter-activists-accuse-executive-stealing-10-million-dono-rcna46481
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-02/black-lives-matter-leader-accused-of-stealing-10-million-from-organization
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/04/us/black-lives-matter-executive-lawsuit/index.html

I mean, this was all over the news for like a month. At least where I live. It's not a conspiracy. Yeah, it doesn't make the whole movement a scam, but if they ever want to build up their credibility again they're fighting a really hard uphill battle.

The right wing in the US is so thoroughly littered with what amounts to scams BLM looks pristine in comparison.

You asked for my sources, now may I ask for yours? As I legitimately am unfamiliar with anything like that.

[persephone325]

You asked for my sources, now may I ask for yours? As I legitimately am unfamiliar with anything like that.

To add to this, I would like to hear about anything that doesn't involve Trump. He's just low-hanging fruit at this point. lol

[Oniya]

So, for all of you speculating on the reason why Griner was the one brought home:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/08/biden-griner-whelan-russia-00073044

Biden had no part in making the decision about which American came home.

[Lustful Bride]

Also relevant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMldJ2oXZqw

[persephone325]

Also relevant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMldJ2oXZqw

OK. You think he's "out of the game". That's fair. But do you know who else that could be applied to? The numerous cases of serial killers that were also "out of the game" for years, but came back and started killing again. It's not entirely out of the question that Bout can get back "in the game".

(Not directed at you, Bride. Just to clarify.)

So, for all of you speculating on the reason why Griner was the one brought home:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/08/biden-griner-whelan-russia-00073044

Biden had no part in making the decision about which American came home.

He still had to make the final yes or no decision. Is it nit-picky? I guess, but he still played a part in the process.

[Dashenka]

Can we just once and for all stop buying into Russian nationalist mythmaking, and just KILL the story of General Winter?


Dogged death-or-glory tactics like Stalingrad are very counter-productive to a soldier who just wants to survive in a war that he doesn't have a stake in.

1. It's not a myth. Winter is a blessing and a curse to both Ukraine and Russia. Not a myth.
2. You know absolutely fuck all about this and your ignorance on this topic is insulting. I have had the absolute honour of being raised by a man who fought in that battle in a war that wasn't his' and that he never wanted a part in and the only way he kept himself alive to go home to his wife was the death or glory mentality you discard in your post. Surrender and get arrested and then what? Hope for mercy or clemency? In a war? Have you missed that bit where that young Russian soldier gets sentenced to life in prison in Ukraine for following orders and murdering a civilian? Or conveniently forgot about it? The only way out of a draft in a war is to fight your way through it.

I realize you have no idea how US politics work, but if this was about ratings it would have been announced before the election, not after. He knew this would be unpopular.

Let's ignore the fact that you called the merchant of death useless and put more value in a drug smuggling basketball player. That is fine.

I believe said basketball player is completely useless in the grand scheme of things and I know an arms dealer is a HUGE asset to Putin. You're an intelligent man, I know you realise that Bout can also get weapons INTO Russia or worse, to the Wagner group. I'm glad for Brittney and her family that she is home, albeit dodging her sentence. I'm not so glad he is home.

But let's agree to disagree. I'm too rattled by the other guy's post about Stalingrad.

[Humble Scribe]

Bout will never sell a weapon again. No-one would trust him now. The point is he knows where the bodies are buried, probably quite literally. That's not someone Putin wants in someone else's hands. The bigger question is why Biden traded him for a baseball player.

However bad things are in Russia's army now, there are no NKVD commissars with machineguns stationed behind the front lines to shoot anyone insufficiently committed. Comparisons with WWII are a bit fatuous.

Ukraine's army probably goes into winter better equipped than Russia's, but Russia now has more men courtesy of its mobilisation, and it continues to strike at Ukraine's - and Europe's - energy infrastructure, in the first case via missiles, in the second via gas shortages. It's very cold even here in London today - only just above freezing during the day and below it by night. A few more weeks of that and who knows what the pressure will be to change the situation? That's the General Winter Putin is relying on; nothing to do with the poor slobs huddled on the front lines.