Yeah right.
Posted on 05/06/2022 6:51:38 AM PDT by GonzoII
Ukrainian fighters have found a new use for outdated grenades that is proving spectacularly effective at destroying Russian tanks and other armored vehicles.This photo released by Aerorozvidka, an organization that develops Ukraine's use of small drones in warfare, shows a Ukrainian-made octocopter drone with two bomblets mounted beneath it.
Videos recently released by Aerorozvidka show what appears to be the same, tail-finned explosives being dropped by drone before destroying armored vehicles with catastrophic explosions. Weapons trackers following the conflict in Ukraine have identified the bomblets as modified Soviet-era RKG-3 anti-tank grenades with 3D-printed tail fins attached to stabilize their fall from drones…..
(Excerpt) Read more at rferl.org ...
I make so many such errors when I’m posting from a phone instead of a keyboard. We Freepers have the imagination to interpret all kinds of writing/editing. The surviving daily newspapers require the same puzzle gaming to see what they are trying to say.
—”In the future many nations will want to buy the Ukrainian hardware that has proven effective.”
And... Russian arms sales had been about 20% of their revenue and energy ~40%.
And... the Chinese have been upping their arms sales lately while cutting Russian purchasing.
Had we actually started putting nukes in Ukraine, the Cuba analogy might have some merit. But we didn't, so....
What are you talking about? They took Crimea in 2014 and South Ossetia in 2008.
I was very clear that I am not claiming that Russia had the right to invade.
My claim is that the globalists knew exactly what would happen.
As for why Putin decided to invade now....
Since the western-backed coup in Ukraine, there have been numerous actions that could be perceived as moving Ukraine closer to de facto membership. In just the last three years alone, the Ukrainian constitution was changed to codify the aspiration for NATO membership rather than neutrality, over $1 billion worth of weapons were poured into Ukraine since spring of 2021, the U.S. and other countries trained the Ukrainian military to work directly with NATO, more US/UK/NATO exercises were held in the region and US warships increased their time spent in the Black Sea by 150% between 2020 and 2021. There was also concern that missile systems similar to those stationed in Romania and Poland – that are believed by the Russian government to have offensive capability with a change in software – could be installed in Ukraine.
While it may be true that the country was not going to be officially admitted into NATO any time soon, it wasn’t exactly insane from Russia’s perspective to think that de facto NATO membership was an ever-increasing reality.
In June 2020 NATO offered Ukraine "Enhanced Opportunity Partner status". According to the British government report "Military assistance to Ukraine 2014-2021," "this status provides Ukraine with preferential access to NATO’s exercises, training and exchange of information and situational awareness, in order to increase interoperability. In September 2020 Ukraine hosted Exercise Joint Endeavor, with British, US and Canadian troops," which was "the first exercise conducted under Ukraine’s new enhanced status."
A number of other major exercises have been organized since and others, involving tens of thousands of troops, were planned for 2022.
As reported by the Associated Press on November 30, 2021, Putin told the audience at an online investment forum that he was worried about this very thing:
Speaking to participants of an online investment forum the Russian president said that NATO’s eastward expansion has threatened Moscow’s core security interests. He expressed concern that NATO could eventually use the Ukrainian territory to deploy missiles capable of reaching Russia’s command centers in just five minutes.
"The emergence of such threats represents a ‘red line’ for us," Putin said. "I hope that common sense and responsibility for their own countries and the global community will eventually prevail."
Putin expressed similar concerns a month later in a speech to his military leaders:
Over the past few years, military contingents of NATO countries have been almost constantly present on Ukrainian territory under the pretext of exercises. The Ukrainian troop control system has already been integrated into NATO. This means that NATO headquarters can issue direct commands to the Ukrainian armed forces, even to their separate units and squads….
In fact, Putin tried to explain, in a visibly frustrated tone, to a group of Western journalists during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in 2016 that US/NATO was engaging in provocative behaviors that threatened Russia’s security and that he would eventually be forced to act:
"I must remind you, though you already know this, that major global conflicts have been avoided in the past few decades due to the geostrategic balance of power, which used to exist. So the Iranian threat does not exist. But missile defense systems are continuing to be built. That means we were right when we said they are lying to us. I don’t know how this is all going to end. What I do know is that we will need to defend ourselves. And I even know how they will package this: "Russian aggression" again. But this is simply our response to your actions. Is it not obvious that I must guarantee the safety of our people? And not only that, but we must attempt to retain the necessary strategic balance of power, which is the point that I began with…It was precisely this balance of power that guaranteed the safety of humanity from major global conflict over the past 70 years. It was a blessing rooted in a mutual threat, but this mutual threat is what guaranteed mutual peace, on a global scale. How they could so easily tear it down, I simply don’t know. I think this is gravely dangerous. I not only think that, I’m assured of it.
He said he wouldn't stand by.
The CIA director knew he wouldn't stand by.
The entire western world knew he wouldn't stand by.
Yet we continued to push until he invaded.
He is not right or justified in invading Ukraine.
We were not right or justified in helping to overthrow their government.
We were stupid to upset the balance of power there.
We were cruel in using the Ukrainian people as pawns to enrich our globalist oligarchs.
I think Putin is a war criminal. I also think GWB, Dick Cheney, John McCain, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Barak Obama, John Kerry, Joe Biden and Zelensky are war criminals too.
It’s inevitable. They join NATO they get missiles. Putin is pretty far-seeing including his own mortality. Having said that I want him to lose quickly. Too much risk of him starting a nuclear war. Give them Donbass and the Black Sea areas. Ukraine is best off free and neutral.
That's exactly
the point! Russia did nothing when former Warsaw Pact members Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania joined NATO. It likewise did nothing when former Soviet Republican Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia all did that same. Which shows this has nothing to do with NATO.
When Russia grabbed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, there was no prospective NATO membership on the table. Russia grabbed it anyway simply because it wanted Crimea. And when Russia went into South Ossetia in 2008, there likewise had been zero change in the non-relationship between Georgia and NATO. NATO membership is the red herring -- the excuse Putin uses to justify his military adventurism.
As for the rest of it
While it may be true that the country was not going to be officially admitted into NATO any time soon,
Full stop. That is literally the only point that matters in terms of the alleged provocation. And the rather limited weapons that had entered Ukraine only did so after Russia and Putin's little green men grabbed Crimea in 2014. I mean, that's a joke of an argument. "We seized your most important port from your incompetent military in 2014, and the fact that you are now trying to strengthen your military justifies us grabbing the rest of your puny country."
The only part of what you said that raises a legitimate issue is this:
He expressed concern that NATO could eventually use the Ukrainian territory to deploy missiles capable of reaching Russia’s command centers in just five minutes.
Fine. If Putin had said "I need a guarantee that NATO will not put nuclear weapons in Ukraine", I think that's a legitimate concern that could have been addressed as a prerequisite to Ukraine joining NATO. I'd even have listened to Russian concerns about large scale military operations by NATO countries in Ukraine. Limits on numbers, or maybe geographic limits on exercises east of the Dnieper, may have been reasonable. But that's not what he was demanding. He wanted no NATO membership of any kind, and that was 100% unreasonable for a country that already had been invaded once by Russia.
No, it isn't. Make that a condition of membership. Absolutely zero reason that couldn't work. And if we look like we're breaking that pledge, that's when you may have an argument to invade.
If Putin’s concern is the west arming and moving missiles into Ukraine, what is the difference between NATO membership and “defacto” NATO membership?
They wanted them to be neutral so they wouldn’t do the things that would lead to either membership or defacto membership such as building up militarily and hosting missiles.
Q - Why was that something that we couldn’t live with?
A - Because the globalist oligarchs don’t get wealthy and powerful off of that.
Start with the West playing footsie with a former Soviet state, genius.
***Really, now. That is where HISTORY of the region starts with you. You could not have picked a better example of a loaded definition. You’re already making ridiculous assertions and looking at the region through propaganda-filled eyes. Then you throw out the insult, as if you are some kind of genius but you don’t even know how to separate yourself from your own biased approach.
That’s where the problem started.
***The problem started when Russia kept Ukraine in its sphere of influence for so many decades, enslaving a whole nation. Then the USSR fell, and those dipwads left a third of their nuclear arsenal abandoned on Uke soil.
This provides another historic high point because Ukraine, Russia, the USA, Britain and Ireland all signed the Budapest Accession to the United Nations Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty assuring borders&sovereignty in exchange for dismantling those nukes. The Ukes HONORED that agreement; the Rukes VIOLATED it twice by invading; the USA was looking for ways to ABROGATE it because there had been 2 namby-pamby administrations.
Another historical highlight is that oil & gas reserves were discovered there. But you want history to be traced by one country “playing footsie” with another. What a joke.
It’s no different than the Soviets putting missiles into Cuba.
***If it were no different then we would have nuclear missiles in Ukraine. And we do NOT. So you’re exactly the polar opposite of where your analogy needs to be. Not only do we not have nukes but the Ukes don’t have nukes because they gave them up, HONORING that agreement. And they were SOVIET nukes, genius. Your analogy is so far off that it laughs at itself.
Had Kennedy invaded
***Kennedy DID invade, genius.
would you blame the USA for starting it? Come on.
***Yes. We started that one. Russia’s response to the Bay of Pigs Invasion was to try to put nukes into Cuba. Kennedy put the kibosh on that when he discovered that we had at least 5X the nuke capacity as the USSR because they were lying about their capability while we were busy trying to catch up to that lie. Not that you would know any of the particulars of that historical milestone.
No, I actually read and listened to a whole bunch of opinions on BOTH sides of the argument to come up with my own opinion. I couldn’t rely on anything the media said because I have learned not to trust them.
I had just lived through 4 years of the entire media lying to me every day and pushing a narrative trying to get me to hate Trump.
For the next 2 years they lied to me about Covid.
I’ll bet you probably realize that they lied to you for all those years but you think, “They are probably telling truth about this. They wouldn’t lie about war.”
That's exactly why Putin pointing to NATO membership as a red line doesn't make sense -- if that is truly his concern. I mean, why wouldn't he just say "If you move nuclear weapons into Ukraine, or hold large-scale exercises east of the Dnieper, it will mean war."
Why didn't he just demand that?
I'll tell you why -- because that really wasn't his concern. I mean, it likely was "a" concern, but he already knew he could get that guarantee if he pushed. More importantly, he also knew that Russia's own nuclear weapons were an absolute deterrent to Russia itself being attacked. We all still know today that invading a nuclear armed-country is the single act most likely to trigger a nuclear response.
utin's real concern was never that Russia might be attacked by NATO. He knew that wasn't going to happen anyway. His real concern was that he sees Russia as having a right to dominate the countries around it, either through military force or intimidation based on the the threat to use military force. He wanted the reestablishment of a "Great Russian" bloc, and Ukraine drawing loser to the West economically, etc., threatened that ambition. And he knew that dream of restoring a "Greater Russia" would be dead forever if Ukraine ever joined NATO.
Putin didn't invade Ukraine because he perceived either Ukraine or NATO as an actual military threat to Russia. He invaded it because he thought time was running out on his dream to be the great restorer of Russia's rightful destiny.
. I've been making that same excellent point for awhile now. The Putinistas keep saying "It's just like Cuba!" while ignoring that 1) there are no missiles in Ukraine, and 2) we tolerated Russian troops being in Cuba for decades, and were fine with it as long as they didn't have nukes. So Cuba really is the measuring stick, then the Russians shouldn't have any problem with Ukraine as long as nukes are not deployed there.
That would have been an easy enough guarantee to give.
Yeah right.
It was not a coup, it was a popular revolution... by the time parliament voted, Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from office by 328 to 0
Revolution of Dignity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity
This article is about the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. For other uses, see Revolution of Dignity (disambiguation).
Revolution of Dignity
Goals
Removal of President Viktor Yanukovych
Restoration of the 2004 amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine
Methods
Protesting, rioting, civil disobedience, insurrection
Resulted in Euromaidan / Opposition victory
Full results
Parties to the civil conflict
Euromaidan protestors
Ukraine Government of Ukraine
Supported by:
Russia (alleged)
Lead figures
Arseniy Yatsenyuk
Vitali Klitschko
Oleh Tyahnybok
Petro Poroshenko
Yuriy Lutsenko
Oleksandr Turchynov
Yulia Tymoshenko
Andriy Parubiy
Andriy Sadovyi
Arsen Avakov
Dmytro Yarosh
Ruslana
Viktor Yanukovych
Serhiy Arbuzov
Vitaliy Zakharchenko
Oleksandr Yefremov
Andriy Klyuyev
Hennadiy Kernes
Mikhail Dobkin
Viktor Pshonka
Olena Lukash
Yuriy Boyko
Leonid Kozhara
Dmytro Tabachnyk
Number
Kyiv:
400,000–800,000 protesters[8]
12,000 “self-defense sotnia”[9][10]
Across Ukraine:
50,000 (Lviv)[11]
20,000 (Cherkasy)[12]
10,000+ (Ternopil)[13]
other cities and towns
Law enforcement in Kyiv:
4,000 Berkut
1,000 Internal Troops
3,000–4,000 titushky[14]
Pro-government/anti-EU demonstrations:
20,000–60,000 (Kyiv)
40,000 (Kharkiv)[15]
15,000 (Donetsk)[16]
10,000 (Simferopol)[17]
2,500 pro-Russia (Sevastopol)[18]
Casualties and losses
Deaths: 108 (January–February)[19]
Injured: 1,100+[20][21]
Arrested: 77[22]
Deaths: 13[19]
Injured: 272[21]
Captured: 67[23]
Overall deaths: 121[19]
Overall injuries: 1,811
Ministry of Healthcare totals (16 April 2014 @6:00 LST)[24]
Not to be confused with Maidan Uprising the previous year.
The Revolution of Dignity (Ukrainian: Революція гідності, romanized: Revoliutsiia hidnosti), also known as the Maidan Revolution,[2] took place in Ukraine in February 2014[2][1] at the end of the Euromaidan protests,[1] when deadly clashes between protesters and the security forces in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv culminated in the ousting of elected President Viktor Yanukovych just prior to him being impeached.
In November 2013, a wave of large-scale protests (known as Euromaidan) erupted in response to President Yanukovych’s sudden decision not to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union (EU), instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. In February of that year, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) had overwhelmingly approved of finalizing the agreement with the EU.[25] Russia had put pressure on Ukraine to reject it.[26] These protests continued for months and their scope widened, with calls for the resignation of Yanukovych and the Azarov Government.[27] Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption and abuse of power, the influence of oligarchs, police brutality, and violation of human rights in Ukraine.[28][29] Repressive anti-protest laws fuelled further anger.[28] A large, barricaded protest camp occupied Independence Square in central Kyiv throughout the ‘Maidan Uprising’.
The first protesters were killed in fierce clashes with police on Hrushevsky Street on 19–22 January. Thousands of protesters advanced towards parliament, led by activists with shields and helmets, and were fired on by police snipers.[19] On 21 February, an agreement between President Yanukovych and the leaders of the parliamentary opposition was signed that called for the formation of an interim unity government, constitutional reforms and early elections.[31] The following day, police withdrew from central Kyiv, which came under effective control of the protesters. Yanukovych fled the city and then the country.[32] That day, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from office by 328 to 0 (72.8% of the parliament’s 450 members).[33][34][35][31]
The interim government, led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, signed the EU association agreement and disbanded the Berkut. Petro Poroshenko became president after a victory in the 2014 presidential elections (54.7% of the votes cast in the first round). The new government restored the 2004 amendments to the Ukrainian constitution that had been controversially repealed as unconstitutional in 2010,[39] and initiated a large-scale purge of civil servants associated with the overthrown regime.[40][41][42] There was also a widespread decommunization of the country.
Bkmk
Do you really think the U.S. government is in any way trustworthy? Do you think they would ever make such an agreement given their extreme bellicosity and aggression? You must have a much better impression of Bidenistan than I do.
In any case the war is on. Best case is quick Russian defeat with a way to save face so the tactical nukes don’t fly i.e. they get the Donbas and Black Sea areas they want. It’s better that the Ukraine gets chopped up and steamrolled than nuclear war. A million dead Ukies over thermonuclear holocaust any day of the week. I’m not pro-Russia and I’m not pro-Ukraine I’m pro-personal survival and prosperity.
Yep. Ukrainian nationals are modern-day Vikings with Nazi tattoos.
But, the Ukrainian civilians that have been used as human shields and shot at or killed by these apes, don't have such a high opinion of them.
Don Jr. and Trump have gone out of their way to help JD Vance get elected in Ohio. And Vance was the only Ohio candidate to oppose a no-fly zone in Ukraine and has gone out of his way to say we shouldn't be pouring money into this war.
According to who? The Ukrainians. They honor neo-Nazis and use them as frontline fighters. Zelensky has imprisoned opposition leaders, shutdown ALL opposition parties and banned opposition media outlets. They made up the "ghost of Kiev" story and lied about Bucha. But, they'd never, ever fudge the number of tanks they have destroyed.
You are an idiot.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.