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Putin’s embarrassing one-tank parade hints at catastrophic losses in Ukraine
Atlantic Council ^ | 9th May 2023 | Peter Dickinson

Posted on 05/09/2023 9:28:16 PM PDT by Cronos

It would be hard to image a more fitting symbol of Russia’s declining military fortunes than the sight of a solitary Stalin-era tank trundling across Red Square during the country’s traditional Victory Day celebrations on May 9. For the past two decades, Vladimir Putin has used Victory Day to showcase modern Russia’s resurgence as a military superpower, with dozens of the very latest tanks typically taking part in each annual parade. This year, however, the only tank on display was a T-34 model dating back to World War II.

Inevitably, the embarrassing absence of tanks at this year’s Victory Day parade has been widely interpreted as further evidence of Russia’s catastrophic losses in Ukraine. Social media was soon buzzing with posts poking fun at the Kremlin. “Modern Russian military equipment can be found much more easily at Ukrainian military trophy exhibitions than at the Victory Parade in Moscow,” noted the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s official Twitter account. Others were less subtle. “There was one tank at the parade in Moscow! We laugh all over Ukraine,” posted Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko. “There are farmers in Ukraine with more tanks than that,” quipped another Twitter user.

Tuesday’s one-tank parade was the latest in a series of blows that had already cast a shadow over preparations for this year’s Victory Day celebrations. In the month preceding the holiday, more than twenty cities across Russia canceled plans to hold military parades. While security concerns were officially cited, these cancellations fueled speculation that Russia simply doesn’t have enough military equipment available to stage regional parades, with the vast majority of tanks and other vehicles having already been sent to Ukraine.

(Excerpt) Read more at atlanticcouncil.org ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Russia; Ukraine
KEYWORDS: 15thmonth; admissionoffailure; atlanticcouncil; atlanticcouncillol; catastrophiclosses; failedinvasion; globalistpropaganda; losing; onetankparade; redsquare; russia
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To: jmacusa

Why should I fight in Ukraine when I can fight right here? But I send a lot more than my tax money to Ukraine. I have family and friends there, both civilian and military. They don’t want the optics of elderly Americans fighting on their frontline. There are plenty of commie scum right here for me to contend with.

You are a low bred hater of freedom-loving people. You want to punish an entire country because you and Obama want to give Russia more flexibility. I answered you on Wardaddy and you are too blunt to get the point. You two enemies are bedfellows on Ukraine. Ha !!!


61 posted on 05/10/2023 12:34:43 AM PDT by Monterrosa-24 (To the barricades !!!)
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To: jmacusa
Keeping it real, yo! Time for a commercial break and priority check. . .

pfft

62 posted on 05/10/2023 1:09:22 AM PDT by Rocco DiPippo
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To: Doc91678
Maybe Zelensky can sell a few back to Putin after Putin surrenders.

Yeah, that's the ticket!

Winning!

63 posted on 05/10/2023 1:13:46 AM PDT by Rocco DiPippo
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To: VanShuyten

Everyone is so excited to point out corruption and incompetence in the world. Meanwhile congress builds fences around their shrines in DC while telling us fences font work on our southern border while about 3+ million invaders have come across since Biteme da Potato became resident of the whitehut.

Our politicians are much more crooked than any others in the world. The continue to cheat lie and steal. The get rich while destroying the west, piss on us, wipe out entire countries (Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine…).

They create terrorist armies, backstab Allies, fund our enemies (Iran for example) yet people here cheer on the great games of the colosseum. Our own country is a police state that hunts down random citizens and pushes harden criminals back onto the street. Yet the FBI can emergency fly 21 agents to investigate a garage pull in mere hours. Failing to worship DIE will get you years in courts.

Meanwhile the govt keep screaming to take our guns, castrate our suns and feed our daughters to the death cults of feminists, LGBTQ++, abortion, hatred against their brothers, fathers and husbands. Our society is a cesspool of debauchery, unforgiving debt, lost opportunities and everyone has been sold into tax bondage for 3+ generations to pay a never ending central gov debt.

By all means tell me the horrible world threat Russia is like all the Pavlovian dogs that make up the new USA. How screwed we are.

And I haven’t even talked about how a jacked up cold virus we created gave the government power to lock you out of your job, had people going one way in grocery stores, wearing face burkas, forced to take experimental genetic therapies and 3 years of unlimited power while people hid under their beds.

I don’t think Russia is my biggest issue. It is my 82 million neighbors that voted for all this. It’s the beast that has been created in my own backyard.


64 posted on 05/10/2023 1:40:06 AM PDT by wgmalabama (Censored !)
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To: Monterrosa-24

And point of fact jerk, you started this by mentioning my name in a post to ‘’wardaddy’’ before I posted anything on the thread knowing full well I can’t stand the guy.

You really are stupid.


65 posted on 05/10/2023 1:45:30 AM PDT by jmacusa (Liberals. Too stupid to be idiots. )
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To: Williams
All of you who keep salivating over the “brilliance” of these murderous thug bastards, make me want to vomit.

Then vomit!   Why should we care?

66 posted on 05/10/2023 1:48:10 AM PDT by higgmeister (In the Shadow of The Big Chicken!)
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To: Rocco DiPippo

Exactly. In the early 90’s with the collapse of the Soviet Union we were sending aid to Russia. I wonder how many Americans remember that or even know it.


67 posted on 05/10/2023 1:56:44 AM PDT by jmacusa (Liberals. Too stupid to be idiots. )
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To: All

So, Russia isolated Bahkmut for an easy victory very soon.

This was what...3 or 4 monthis ago?


68 posted on 05/10/2023 1:58:28 AM PDT by rbmillerjr
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To: Monterrosa-24
Fight here?! What a joke. You're a key board warrior, that's all you are. Yeah, “Slava Ukraine!'' Yeah, right.
69 posted on 05/10/2023 2:07:34 AM PDT by jmacusa (Liberals. Too stupid to be idiots. )
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To: jmacusa
I remember that. But no way we were sending them the volume of cash that's being dumped into Youcrayne today. In today's dollars that would have been approaching ~1/2 trillion back then.

40,000 homeless American vets and we're paying government salaries in Youcrayne? WTF is that? Let that sink in for a minute. . .

70 posted on 05/10/2023 2:12:48 AM PDT by Rocco DiPippo
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To: Rocco DiPippo

I know it’s infuriating. Our vets go hungry while Biden shovels money to a thug half way around the world. You know that money is more than likely going straight into Zelensky’s pocket and no one elses.

Some one should ask USmrevmom or what ever her/his name is, you know that poster who is the “Youcranye(lol, I like that) cheerleader what she/he thinks of that.


71 posted on 05/10/2023 2:19:30 AM PDT by jmacusa (Liberals. Too stupid to be idiots. )
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To: Monterrosa-24

Zelensky was appointed puppet during the Obama years. At first, he was asking Biden to stop war mongering.. now he is just sitting back with how much taxpayer money.
He allowed the globalists to sacrifice ukrainians and if you do t recognize that, then you fail to understand what they think of you.
The globalists require Russian natural resources for their new world and slave labor to obtain it.
Putin is no doubt evil, but it is relatively contained.
This is exactly two things.. one an expansion of obamas Syrian pipeline war for Russia and two regime change.
A puppet like zelensky in Russia would be disastrous for humanity.
And… people don’t tweet from the front lines… that was your first clue that something else was going on.
Supplies and coms are first to go in any offensive. Even an inept Cic like Biden would agree.
That was the first sign that the democrat corruption machine was at work in ukraine.
I guess we are out of Afghanistan lithium. I mean democracy.


72 posted on 05/10/2023 2:24:11 AM PDT by momincombatboots (BQEphesians 6... who you are really at war with)
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To: Cronos

Well, that will sure reduce the wear and tear on the pavement in Red Square!


73 posted on 05/10/2023 3:13:15 AM PDT by Redleg Duke (“Who is John Galt?”)
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To: Monterrosa-24; jmacusa; Allegra; wardaddy
jmacusa #29: "Ukraine and Russia were two scorpions in a bottle and I further said I hope they both kill each other off."

Mopnterrosa-24: "So, you depict the invader and the defender as being morally equal.
That means you are covering for the invader.
Ukraine is fighting for its survival.
Russia is making another land grab as it did when it invaded the Republic of Georgia.
You are a Putin pal period."

The argument which says, "this is not our fight" makes some sense and is advanced by some highly respected conservatives, like Tucker Carlson.
And normally I treat Carlson's opinions as golden, but in this case, it's not that simple, and here's why.

Suppose two small countries in the middle of nowhere fight a war against each other and, even if one is a sentimental favorite for historical reasons, objectively speaking, their war truly is "not our fight".
An example might be Armenia and Azerbaijan, currently in a border crisis which sometimes breaks out in open warfare.
At most, our interest there is to encourage peace negotiations.

But Russia and Ukraine are a different matter entirely.
Russia is a major revisionist power -- meaning they don't like the current world order and want to change it more to their advantage.
Russia is (or was) the number two military and still is number one in nuclear weapons.
And Russia has since 1990 signed numerous treaties recognizing not just Ukraine's independence, but also Crimea and the Donbas as part of Ukraine.
So Russia is the bad actor here, it's indisputable.

Of course, many do dispute it.
They claim:

  1. Ukraine is not a real country so, if you look closely at all those photos of Nikita Khruschev, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin signing documents recognizing Ukraine including Crimea, look very closely and you'll notice that every one of those Russian leaders has his fingers crossed behind his back, meaning, dontcha know, it doesn't really count, they're just pretending, and they never really, truly, recognized Ukraine's independence or sovereignty.

    Of course, this argument is insane, and nations like Russia which blatantly break treaties cannot expect to be treated with any respect.

  2. Ukraine is a vipers' pit of NAZIS, Nazis, Nazis, Nazis, Nazis, Nazis and still more NAZIS!
    And Nazis have to be eradicated before they poison the world!

    This argument flummoxes most westerners, Americans especially, because to us, in our memory of the word "Nazi" it means only one thing -- the Holocaust, the systematic murder of millions of Jews.
    Now Ukraine has a Jewish president, a thriving Jewish community and there's no evidence of Jews being persecuted in Ukraine.
    So how is Ukraine suddenly a nest of Nazis?

    Well, the obvious answer is, to Vladimir Putin, the word "Nazi" means the same thing it does to our own radical leftists, like Antifa or BLM, it means: if you don't support us 100%, then you are a Nazi, or a racist, or a transphobe, or whatever other nasty name they can think of.

    The word "Nazi" to Vlad the Invader simply means: "bow down to mother Russia, or die."

  3. Ukrainians are committing genocide against Russians!

    It's absurd. About half of Ukrainians speak Russian, including their Pres. Zelensky, and about half of those are ethnic Russians.
    Before 2014 Russian speakers dominated Ukrainian politics, including their president, Yanukovych.
    So "genocide" then was impossible.

    In 2014, when Yanukovych was impeached and removed from office by Ukraine's parliament (vote was 328 to 0), he committed treason by inviting Russia to invade Ukraine, enlisting support from ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine.
    Since then, war between Ukraine and Russian invaders has included some Ukrainians fighting along side Russia's military.

    When you are committing treason against your own country and you are killed in battle, that is not "genocide", no matter what Vald the Invader calls it.

  4. The other "N"-word: "nukes", Ukraine might have nukes and so Russia is obliged to search every square inch of Ukrainian territory to find N-words -- nukes and Nazis.

    In fact, there is no evidence of Ukrainian nukes and, unlike Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Ukrainians have never threatened anybody, not even Russia, with weapons of mass destruction.

  5. NATO is expanding too close to Russia!

    This is most curious because, for many years after 1990, Russia intended, and was encouraged by leaders like US Pres. BJ Clinton, to join NATO.
    Russian leaders like Boris Yeltsin considered NATO a friend and even young Vladimir Putin said he wanted Russia to be part of Europe, including NATO.

    Along with Russia, almost every other country of Eastern Europe wanted to join NATO, and most did -- by 2004, a time when Russia was still very friendly to NATO.
    No country near Russia has joined NATO since 2004.

    Like Russia itself, Ukraine wanted to join NATO, but out of deference to Russia, delayed applying for membership, in effect, indefinitely.
    Unlike Russia, Ukraine grew increasingly friendly to NATO, and all the more friendly as Russia grew more hostile.

    So Vlad the Invader's claim that Ukraine will join NATO is clearly a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Such arguments notwithstanding, a potential Russian victory over Ukraine is a major concern for Americans because:
  1. Russia and Ukraine are the #1 and #2 largest countries in Europe by size.
    They are #1 and #7 largest by populations.

  2. A Russian victory over and annexing of Ukraine would increase Russia's population and economy by roughly 1/3, making Russia that much more difficult to defeat in their next invasion.

  3. Under Vlad the Invader, Russia has become a traditional, old-style empire builder, by military conquest, exactly the kind of nation that two World Wars were fought to defeat.
    His record of invading smaller neighbors is similar to that of a certain Nazi leader in 1939, after he invaded the Rhineland (Chechnya), Austria (Georgia), the Sudetenland (Ukraine #1) and Czechia (Ukraine #2).

  4. Traditional old-time empires are amoral, meaning self-justifying, or "might makes right", and need no justifications or excuses to invade their neighbors.
    They only need perceived weakness and opportunity to invade their neighbors, and each victory makes them both stronger and more likely to invade again.

    So the only way to stop them is to defeat them.

That's where we are today.
So, "it's not our fight" might be technically true, but the consequences of Ukraine's potential defeat will only make the world order, as we know it now, increasingly unstable and unfriendly to us.

We would not like such a new world order.

74 posted on 05/10/2023 3:14:32 AM PDT by BroJoeK (future DDG 134 -- we remember)
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Amazing how the Ukraine - Russia war has turned folks into zombie zealots for nations they never stepped foot in or even know the local languages.

Just like covid.

Propaganda is a might drug. LOL.


75 posted on 05/10/2023 3:20:41 AM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal (Jesus + Something = Nothing ; Jesus + Nothing = Everything )
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To: Kazan

Curious how many posts have you cut and pasted this pit of “information” on


76 posted on 05/10/2023 3:57:21 AM PDT by blitz128
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To: rfp1234

Well first I don’t think they were ICBMs but Sam systems could be wrong didn’t watch, second don’t think they have a shortage of “ICBMs”, third yes focusing on lack of tanks(remember we have been told they have an inexhaustible supply) and lack of modern tanks, where was t-14s, bmps, SP ARTY….
Just an observation perhaps the subdued “we are at war er ah SMO” theme is correct. I have my doubts


77 posted on 05/10/2023 4:04:34 AM PDT by blitz128
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To: wardaddy
Already posted

Still, it's funny as hell. And the parade route bereft of attendees...just a big, empty square.

78 posted on 05/10/2023 4:12:28 AM PDT by Sirius Lee (They intend to murder us. Prep if you want to live and live like you are prepping for eternal life)
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To: Cronos

Well, they paraded a lot more tanks even when Hitler was at the gates of Moscow in October 1941!


79 posted on 05/10/2023 4:42:20 AM PDT by AZJeep
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To: wardaddy

Can you post in the past 22 years when they have used only one tank?


80 posted on 05/10/2023 6:01:24 AM PDT by Cronos
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