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 ...
No one has said Russia’s “crushing defeat” would be imminent. Their defeat yes has been talked about, but no dates and not “crushing”
people sacrificing on a “special military operation”?
Not even a war
Russia started the war alongside Nazi Germany - they were allies who together invaded Poland
It’s 10th May — your New Year’s wish is not happening.
Perhaps you want to change it to your wish for Pooptin?
Boy, you've changed your tone -- last year it was all about how the Ukrainians would be crushed by the Russians
NOW, all the excuses come out
So you are saying that the Russians had/have a smaller army than the Ukrainians?!!
Oh, that's rich
Polish General Skyrzypczak has been retired since 2010 —>
This is what Russians have to suffer outside Moscow
“””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.”””
What would be amazing would be for the largest European war since WWII and the reemerging of Russian empire building and threatening NATO countries and causing a military build-up and Finland and Sweden to join NATO, and the Russian dictator threatening to attack us with nuclear weapons, not interesting Freerepublic members. Some freepers are even among the 10 million Americans who have actually served in NATO.
Now, the pipehitters are mostly straight-up guys; patriotic and brave to a fault though there are a few psychopaths/sociopaths among them, but not many from what I've experienced. However, the clowns and scumbags (generally speaking) who send them out are goldbricking, rumpswabbing, card-punching f*cksticks. Corrupt, evil, lazy and generally useless. Ugh.
Knowing what I know, I'll bet a king's ransom that "protecting US interests" during the Ruzziiiaaa/Youcrayne grudge match involves mostly protecting the interests$$$ of select "elites" and bureaucrats and their families and biz associates. Eff them all. Meanwhile, we have good guys who fought for us and got messed up because of what they did and saw living in the streets. Sickening.
This must be ended.
Thank you for an interesting compendium of current reality and historic truth. The lies and propaganda disconnected from historic understanding and future disasters is perfectly highlighted by Comment #62. Our situation regarding homeless veterans and PTSD, is tragic and needs serious attention. I know, for 44 years I was married to a Korean War veteran with PTSD whose alcoholism poisoned our marriage and did not help our childen. Only the oblivion of memory from Alzheimers brought peace to our final years before his death.
I believe 5% of our military budget to help Ukraine stop Russian expansionism is money well spent. The fewer US soldiers we have to send to fight a future war with Russia is money we will not have to spend helping future US PTSD sufferers. And believe me they do suffer. I’ll never forget the night my husband came home drunk as usual. I encouraged him to tell me why he seemed especially upset. Our older son was about 14, and since my husband had some Cree indian ancestry, our son had some Asian qualities to his appearance. My husband said, “I killed somebody’s son.” He had killed one of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese youth that were thrown into the Korean War by China (another country that would be more dangerous to us if Ukraine looses). He said that again, and then fell crying in agony while curled in the fetal position. He said that over and over again, crying violently all the while. After an hour sobbing he went to the bathroom. I heard him cry out and the thump as he hit the floor again. He then cried another 1/2 hour just as violently.
He had other strong emotional discharges about other bad experiences in his life. Eventually drinking buddies encouraged him to come to AA meetings. I had asked one of them to take part in an Intervention. He discovered many drinking buddies who had disappeared from the bars were there and he stuck with AA and stopped drinking. The emotional discharges he had done had removed a lot of the charge on his PTSD. The fact his Alzheimers had also begun helped bury the memories.
RUSSIA FACTS: One comment was made that we gave some financial support to Russia during the changeover from the USSR to the current political rulership. What was not mentioned was the huge amount of “Lend Lease” help we gave Russia when Germany attacked them. Even more important is the fact Russia had signed a pact with Hitler so they could both grab the area of Poland along their borders.
In the US American Communists worked hard to convince people we should not get involved in the European war started in 1939. Perhaps thousands of American soldiers and civilians would not have died on Dec. 7, 1941, if we had not been propagandized by Russia’s Communist agents in the US before Russia was betrayed by a leader even more poisoness than Stalin, Germany’s hero Hitler. How many more US soldiers died or developed PTSD because we were not paying enough attention on Dec. 7th when we had major losses of ships and aircraft. Let us NOT make SIMILAR MISTAKES of inattention to Russian intentions in 2023 Let us NOT LISTEN TO Russian propaganda here on Free Republic from people who may not even be Americans.
But it’s such a cute little tank. All freshly painted, no mud, makes a patriotic Russian just want to get in one ASAP.
“RUSSIA FACTS: One comment was made that we gave some financial support to Russia during the changeover from the USSR to the current political rulership. What was not mentioned was the huge amount of “Lend Lease” help we gave Russia when Germany attacked them.
Even more important is the fact Russia had signed a pact with Hitler so they could both grab the area of Poland along their borders.
In the US American Communists worked hard to convince people we should not get involved in the European war started in 1939. Perhaps thousands of American soldiers and civilians would not have died on Dec. 7, 1941, if we had not been propagandized by Russia’s Communist agents in the US before Russia was betrayed by a leader even more poisoness than Stalin, Germany’s hero Hitler.
How many more US soldiers died or developed PTSD because we were not paying enough attention on Dec. 7th when we had major losses of ships and aircraft. Let us NOT make SIMILAR MISTAKES of inattention to Russian intentions in 2023 Let us NOT LISTEN TO Russian propaganda here on Free Republic from people who may not even be Americans.”
Thank you for an excellent comment that just may hopefully open the eyes of the Putin worshipers.
What a stupid and childish remark!
Just because some of us out here may love Russia, doesn’t mean we agree with what Putin has done. My wife is Russian and is ashamed of what is happening. I live in Russia half the year and have been to plenty of Victory Parades and happen to know a lot about the history of Russia. It doesn’t make me a supporter of “invaders from the north” in the idiotic way you shape it.
I sympathize with your sentiments, Rocco DiPippo!
But I hasten to add that, for most of the 20th century, the Soviet Union (the declared successor-state of which is the Russian Federation) was America's pre-eminent geopolitical foe.
No country in the world had as many nuclear-tipped missiles pointed at our nation's heartland! (Russia still has more nuclear death poised over our heads than any other country in the world.)
Anything that degrades Russia's military might and thus weakens its ability to wage war is in the interest of the U.S. - incl. in the interest of the "pipehitters" (slang? meaning?) you mention. It is in the interest of anyone in America who doesn't want to have to send a son to die on some foreign battlefield or who doesn't want to himself die in a nuclear holocaust.
And to those spineless appeasers who claim that it is exactly because of Russia's nuclear arsenal that we should now do everything in our power to placate Russia, I say: We thwarted their attempt to blackmail us during the Berlin Blockade (1948/49).
We "played hardball" with the Soviets in a real shooting war (Korea) in which they sent their proxies (the N. Koreans and Red Chinese) and equipped them to kill G.I.s.
We called their bluff on the high seas near Cuba in 1962.
There is thus no reason to kneel down and bear our throats to the Russians now.
Regards,
I'd like to buy you a cup of coffee!
Regards,
Good analysis Joe but I’m not ignorant of history. The Ukrainians were some of Hitlers most ruthless killers.
However that was some 80 years ago, and that world has been vanquished. My truck with Ukraine is that is was a country, in it’s modern incantation nothing more than a clearing house for bribery , money laundering, gun running, sex slavery and a whole host of other nefarious dealings.
10% for The Big Guy and all that.
I stand by what I said, they’re two scorpions in a bottle and having seen billions of US taxpayer dollars flowing into Zelensky’s pocket is galling to say the least.
My concern is for OUR country which in less than forty eight hours is about to be flooded with hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens with thousands more to come and Biden doesn’t care one bit for what this will do to America.
Right, so your for just sending tons of weapons, right?
Nope. Christ Almighty are you people too dumb to remember what I said at the beginning of this whole thing?
I don’t give a rip for either side.
This is a European problem, not an American one.
Let The Brits and the French and the Germans arm them.
Right, so then your also against defending Taiwan right?
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