Right, right. So I'm a juvenile, and a Kremlin lover. Yet I continue to respond in a civil manner to you and tell you things I disagree with and why I feel the way I do. By the way, who is "we" in "we all know this" apart from you and two other ultra rabid posters? There is always a "both sides". Even if one side is wrong. Oh, and could you point me to your fervor and support for...well, any side in any other military conflict? I'm just curious to read what your support was before the Ukraine was all the rage.
The Chinese are having to do a difficult balancing act here. Xi has the big chinese communist party meeting coming up in the fall that- it is argued- will basically decide whether he is there for life or not. And he cannot afford to go riding into that meeting with the chinese economy on in the shiiter (already bad signs) especially as covid is dishing out a beating. So Xi sees this as the best time to bring Russia in a vassal-state-to-be by siding with them in their time of need, but at the same time he cannot get so close to Russia that he starts taking the economic hits that Putin is receiving. His number one goal is to be looking good going into that party meeting. Big mistake for Vlad to cozy up to the Chinese. Even though the west is sick of Vlad and all of his "Russian World" beating his chest day in and day out, we can be pretty tolerant as long as the Russians behave themselves. As they become a vassal state of China, the Chinese will water down Russian culture - or any culture- bigtime. The Chinese don't want to hear about all that Czar Nicholas, Orthodox Church, Prince of Kiev in Rus 1000 A.D bullshit that Vlad lives for. The Russians and the Chinese (as with the Chinese and the Japanese) have a nasty history and the Chinese will let Putin know that he is the junior partner in that arrangement. Putin really fucked up on this one. It would have been better to work out a better deal with the west, which - contrary to his assertions- really did not have all those designs on attacking Russia. But he got greedy again and thought that Ukraine was a low hanging fruit- so now he is the village idiot in a chinese village- just add time into the mix for it to happen. He basically sold out Russia. Not going to be remembered as Peter the Great that way. I would actuall like to be on good terms with the Russians and have them in the non-Chinese orbit but that is a lost cause now. If i get a tweet from Putin saying that he is in his bunker and is going to shoot himself and is just saying goodbye, well then maybe we can talk about Russian relations again in better times. Until then, the Russians should start brushing up on their Mandarin or Cantonese because they don't need to know English.
Hilarious. Today Google blocked the Russian Duma (Parliament) email system (duma.gov.ru). Apparently they based it in GMail. GMail! Official Russian Parliamentarians email was in GMail! Fully accessible to Google and anyone Google was willing to show it to. Oh and Google blocked it with no access whatsoever, so they can't even transfer the existing email anywhere. I don't know about you, but I find this one of the funniest examples of government incompetence ever.
There is no doubt at all in my mind that Putin did not expect this type of resistance. Georgia and the Crimea were a walk in the park until he hit the wall here.
That's pretty funny. You have to wonder why they blocked it, as I'm sure intelligence agencies here had access to it. So they either felt they had all they needed or it was useless (because the Duma is nothing but a rubber stamp for Putin anyway).
Pretty much the sole tasks the Chechens have been assigned is to execute Russian soldiers who refuse to fight and to execute Ukraine civilians.
US intelligence believes the reconstituted Russian force in the east is at two-thirds its size pre-invasion. Mind you all now, that is with reinforcements and mercenaries. The Russians have sustained a major loss in the first seven weeks of these numbers are close to accurate. This whole thread is good, I suggest starting at the top. Concerning that Russian artillery is getting better at location. I don’t know it that is to be expected with more open land in western Ukraine or if the Russians are showing signs of improvement.
you’re a one stupid idiot if you believe that Russian soldiers actually said this, specifically the one about raping women to his wife?! Complete horseshit!