Current Affairs Ukraine

[Mutzo Nutzo]

Dont ever think that Russia has lost. They just need to hold fast and throw some meat shields on the front line until help arrives.

This is not a photoshop, it was up for a good 12hrs and is one of our political party's platforms, and we only have 2 political parties. Don't delude yourself that this is a fringe movement in the USA.

God bless America. However it would take a very naive person to not understand that the US does not have friends only interests.

But for now their interest is supporting Ukraine and hurting Russia.

The mid-terms will be interesting

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

They'll be facing jail back in Russia.

Better that than a shallow grave

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

Better that than a shallow grave

Lovely caring leader is Vlad.

 

[bluestevon]

This was a clear mandate in the 5-year plan. It was hardly the preserve of a soul lunatic. If it wasn't, perhaps your lovely Georgian would have been as discriminating of ethnic Russian areas as he was to ethnic Ukrainian areas. Alas, he was not.

Nice backtracking to cover the fact you thought Stalin was Russian mate.

If you actually knew he's Georgian then your post is mental.

Was Stalin a brutal dictator yes.
Was he Russian - no.
Did he also kill millions of Russians as well as every other Soviet ethnic group - yes.

Your initial post using effectively policy of his creation to show Russians are bad people, Jesus.

Clutching at straws, why not use Brezhnev next to prove Russians are bad mate, that'd be another good one.

 

[Martin Alvito]

God bless America. However it would take a very naive person to not understand that the US does not have friends only interests.

Or someone living under a rock that had never heard the Kissinger quote.

@Rook:

CPAC's true-believer attendees are among the more loathsome of our human products. They are part of the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party, but that lunatic fringe has grown to be both sizable and influential. They're Exhibit A in "why you don't gerrymander or repeal the equal time doctrine".

Apologies for quoting the wrong thing the second time. Hard to fix on mobile.

 

[bluestevon]

It has been a strategy of Russia since the rule of the Tsars. Putin is just continuiing Russias disgraceful behaviour. As for Stalin, his atrocities were carried out by 'Russians'.

Edit: Russias strategy = eliminating Ukrinaine people/sovereignty/independence.

Did they have a time out during the USSR when Brezhnev, Krushchov and Gorbachev all lead the Republic then mate, one was Ukranian, one was born and raised in Ukraine and the other was Ukranian on the maternal side of his family.

Not to mention various defence secretaries and several heads of the KGB who where Ukranian also.

As for Stalin they where carried out by Soviets you ignoramus

 

[PhilM]

Russia deploys military cadets to fight in Ukraine due to lack of officers – General Staff report

UKRAINSKA PRAVDA – SATURDAY, 1 OCTOBER 2022, 07:11

www.pravda.com.ua

If true, this isn't going to end well and has many similarities to other wars where a desperate attempt by a regime to shore up a front resulted in needless deaths.

They may have the enthusiasm and be loyal to the regime, but ultimately the lack of experience of officers leading green and unmotivated recruits won't end well.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Did they have a time out during the USSR when Brezhnev, Krushchov and Gorbachev all lead the Republic then mate, one was Ukranian, one was born and raised in Ukraine and the other was Ukranian on the maternal side of his family.

Not to mention various defence secretaries and several heads of the KGB who where Ukranian also.

As for Stalin they where carried out by Soviets you ignoramus

Wait - did you just argue that Russians somehow suspended their ethnicity during the Soviet period? That's one way to write off the Stalin/Beria period, but we're all better off if we do what the Germans did and just own the sins of the past.

We can't solve the resulting problems or make some effort at amends without doing that. You can't hang slavery or the Trail of Tears on me or my ancestors, but we're living with the consequences.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

Did they have a time out during the USSR when Brezhnev, Krushchov and Gorbachev all lead the Republic then mate, one was Ukranian, one was born and raised in Ukraine and the other was Ukranian on the maternal side of his family.

Not to mention various defence secretaries and several heads of the KGB who where Ukranian also.

As for Stalin they where carried out by Soviets you ignoramus

No you are right, Russia, in all its guises has supported a free and independent Ukraine.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Russia deploys military cadets to fight in Ukraine due to lack of officers – General Staff report

UKRAINSKA PRAVDA – SATURDAY, 1 OCTOBER 2022, 07:11

www.pravda.com.ua

If true, this isn't going to end well and has many similarities to other wars where a desperate attempt by a regime to shore up a front resulted in needless deaths.

They may have the enthusiasm and be loyal to the regime, but ultimately the lack of experience of officers leading green and unmotivated recruits won't end well.

I dunno, I would have swapped a lot of army officers for some of the firsties I met at West Point in a heartbeat. Not the ones in leadership among the cadets, mind - they were utter rubbish. The more junior cadets, also no, but that's not what Russia is doing.

Now, considering that these are Russia's equivalent of Army Corps of Engineers cadets, it looks less like a good idea. Your point about giving them the impossible job of handling green conscripts is also well-taken.

 

[bluestevon]

Wait - did you just argue that Russians somehow suspended their ethnicity during the Soviet period? That's one way to write off the Stalin/Beria period, but we're all better off if we do what the Germans did and just own the sins of the past.

We can't solve the resulting problems or make some effort at amends without doing that. You can't hang slavery or the Trail of Tears on me or my ancestors, but we're living with the consequences.

Think you're not reading it right mate, conversation in context and all that, Stalin targetted every ethnic group inside the USSR and that includes the rural Russian people too.

Policies enacted by their very nature hit regions harder than others - think it was the initial 5yp to destroy the powerful landowner class - it hit regions hard but devasted Ukraine most due to that effectively being the agricultural heartland of the USSR.

If the agricultural areas would have been to the east - the same plan would hd e been enacted and those areas and people would have suffered the most also.


Stalin throughout his reign targetted any threat to his power and whatever got destroyed doing so was fine by him, he didn't have any specific anti Ukraine agenda, he was a megalomaniac. If a perceived threat to his power would have been seem to come from - evidenced in the great purge which was against mainly Russians in 38.

 

[Rook]

God bless America. However it would take a very naive person to not understand that the US does not have friends only interests.

Most countries do not have friends only interests. This would be fine if the main interest for millions wasn't fascism

 

[Martin Alvito]

Think you're not reading it right mate, conversation in context and all that, Stalin targetted every ethnic group inside the USSR and that includes the rural Russian people too.

Policies enacted by their very nature hit regions harder than others - think it was the initial 5yp to destroy the powerful landowner class - it hit regions hard but devasted Ukraine most due to that effectively being the agricultural heartland of the USSR.

If the agricultural areas would have been to the east - the same plan would hd e been enacted and those areas and people would have suffered the most also.


Stalin throughout his reign targetted any threat to his power and whatever got destroyed doing so was fine by him, he didn't have any specific anti Ukraine agenda, he was a megalomaniac. If a perceived threat to his power would have been seem to come from - evidenced in the great purge which was against mainly Russians in 38.

No, it's this line:

As for Stalin they where carried out by Soviets you ignoramus

that concerned me in context of others' commentary that Stalin/Beria needed complicit Russians in order to operate.

 

[PhilM]

I dunno, I would have swapped a lot of army officers for some of the firsties I met at West Point in a heartbeat. Not the ones in leadership among the cadets, mind - they were utter rubbish. The more junior cadets, also no, but that's not what Russia is doing.

Now, considering that these are Russia's equivalent of Army Corps of Engineers cadets, it looks less like a good idea. Your point about giving them the impossible job of handling green conscripts is also well-taken.

I may not have alluded to it correctly, but junior cadets have the enthusiasm and optimism of youth; look at the Hitler-Jugend as what can be achieved.

So I appreciate that point. Yet, this is a more complicated issue as at first Russian officers are in general not effective as many of their western counterparts.

There's also the huge element of the inexperience and inefficiencies of NCO cadre. When officers leave Sandhurst, Cranwell or Dartmouth, they get support.

The senior NCOs (Sgts, Colour/Staff Sgts and WOs, and even Cpls.) can and do provide advice based on many, many years of experience and training.

The notorious lack of leadership within the Russian army, with NCOs often having a mere few years of experience, if that, will mean it'll be the blind leading the blind.

Discipline will be lacking, experience may be non-existent, and this may result in an unwillingness to fight. Can you see these units standing and holding the line?

 

[bluestevon]

Wait - did you just argue that Russians somehow suspended their ethnicity during the Soviet period? That's one way to write off the Stalin/Beria period, but we're all better off if we do what the Germans did and just own the sins of the past.

We can't solve the resulting problems or make some effort at amends without doing that. You can't hang slavery or the Trail of Tears on me or my ancestors, but we're living with the consequences.

Owning the sins of the past is a good one though, it's true. Can't post anymore about how both sides don't do that or I'll get the usual crew spouting about whatsboutism.

Instead I'll just wonder how a country wishing to be both part of the EU and NATO has whitewashed its own history and now has certain reprehensible individuals idolized as national icons