agreed.
just handing over all of that proprietary research for free?
that's like...a government handout
Russia's Invasion of Ukraine (Official Thread)
- Thread starter newarkhiphop
- Start date
agreed.
just handing over all of that proprietary research for free?
that's like...a government handout
agreed.
just handing over all of that proprietary research for free?
that's like...a government handout
Ding ding ding!
China smart enough not to jump out the window like Putin did especially seeing what happened to Russia economically being sent back to the gulag in a mere week
Both currencies are absolute shyt
i dunno, you tell me...
does the Indian government have a reserve unit of call center soldiers?
They gave them enough time to hide shyt though.Called it… Is-it-real ain’t trying to fukk up their US Aid
Both currencies are absolute shyt
i just bought $5000 worth of Russian Rubles.
the value can only go up from here, when it does i'll convert them all back to dollars and make off like a bandit.
London did the same thing...They gave them enough time to hide shyt though.
We're seeing almost only Ukraine's Ws so it would be best to not be too optimistic, however the situation does seem positive for Ukraine so far.
There are two variables I think that are of major importance
- how long until Russia really gets to feel the blunt of the economic sanctions
- how long until the civilian toll from Russian bombings become too much for Ukraine
Time is against Russia so the longer this lasts, the harder everything becomes for Putin in Ukraine and at home. However, Zelenskyy doesnt appear to be the type that doesnt care about its people so there's only so many casualties he could bear.
Treeshaz
Banned
I dont believe it
Russia must of cut some part of the military budget for that commercial this can't be the big boss I've heard about my whole life
just a theory
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I'm really worried about #1 actually.
The more he arrests people, the more the people will turn. Especially when people can't EAT. If this extends into the summer months Putin's going to have some wild things deal with. Loads of alternative forms of income have already been cut off. With fast food and other multinationals pulling out, that's a lot of jobs evaporated. People stop giving a fukk about patriotism when they got no food on the table.
Which means either revolution, which means Putin has to pull troops from the front to reestablishj order. Or he starts mowing his own people down...which WOULD provoke international reply.
It's a lose-lose in that sense.
I dont believe it
Russia must of cut some part of the military budget for that commercial this can't be the big boss I've heard about my whole life
just a theory
Thats why I posted those threads about corruption and weakness in Russia's military. Its not even the fake promo. its that their hyper masculine bullshyt comes with actual costs cause theres no real honor and rules and order in their military. They got lower ranks selling ass to higher ranks for literal mafia payouts. They dumb down the military because Putin builds state-security apparatuses to suppress internal dissent but he doesn't want the external army getting too strong to oppose him. Its like having a super strong FBI but a weak DoD. The shyt can't work that way. Then he's afraid of the military overthrowing him. Theres a not of institutional problems they have down to, and i hate this word, Culture.
The Best of Christian Compassion, the Worst of Religious Power
The Best of Christian Compassion, the Worst of Religious Power
On the religious roots of war and the Christian response.
David French
Mar 13
539
(Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images.)
As you watch the horror unfolding in Ukraine, you are watching two immensely important, competing religious events unfold in real time. First, Russia’s invasion is laced with religious elements. In many ways, it’s a religious war, representing religion at its worst. Second, as we watch the Ukrainian and international church race to Ukraine’s aide, we’re seeing Christianity at its best.
In one stark moment, we are seeing the extremes of what Christians can do, for evil and for good. Let’s start by describing the evil.
There are times when you read an essay so illuminating and informative that you think about it for years. That happened to me in December 2014, several months after the Russian invasion of Crimea. The essay was by former National Security Agency analyst John Schindler, and it was called “Putin’s Orthodox Jihad.” An Orthodox Christian himself, Schindler provided an analysis of Putin’s Russia I’d seen nowhere else.
The essay is long and complex, but at the risk of oversimplifying the argument, Schindler described an ideological “fusion” between the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the FSB, Russia’s intelligence service. This fusion culminated “in the 2002 dedication of an Orthodox church at the Lubyanka, the FSB—and former KGB’s—notorious Moscow headquarters.”
This ideological fusion, Schindler argued, was at the heart of Putin’s emerging ideology. In essence, Putin didn’t just seek Russian greatness out of a sense of secular national chauvinism, but out of religious mission, and that mission was rooted in the ROC.
Moreover, the church provided the core of the Russian moral argument against the west. Again, here was Schindler:
ROC agitprop, which has Kremlin endorsement, depicts a West that is declining down to its death at the hands of decadence and sin, mired in confused unbelief, bored and failing to even reproduce itself. Patriarch Kirill, head of the church, recently explained that the “main threat” to Russia is “the loss of faith” in the Western style, while ROC spokesmen constantly denounce feminism and the LGBT movement as Satanic creations of the West that aim to destroy faith, family, and nation.
Indeed, Russia even adopted a term called “spiritual security,” which “gives the ROC a mission in defending Russia from negative Western spiritual influences, in partnership with Moscow’s intelligence agencies.”
Since Schindler’s piece—little-noticed at the time—the evidence of Putin’s religious motivations has grown overwhelming. As Giles Fraser argued in the British website Unherd, “Putin regards his spiritual destiny as the rebuilding of Christendom, based in Moscow.”
But what does this have to do with Ukraine? It turns out that Kiev is of central importance in Russian Orthodoxy. It’s the birthplace of the ROC, the church’s “Jerusalem” according to the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill:
Ukraine is not on the periphery of our church. We call Kiev ‘the mother of all Russian cities.' For us Kiev is what Jerusalem is for many. Russian Orthodoxy began there, so under no circumstances can we abandon this historical and spiritual relationship. The whole unity of our Local Church is based on these spiritual ties.
Now, let’s add one final ingredient. In 2019 large numbers of Ukrainian parishes separated from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was formerly under the ROC, to join a new Orthodox Church of Ukraine. In a February report describing the religious dimensions of the war, Schindler noted that “the schism rendered Moscow white-hot with rage. The ROC viewed this as a direct attack on its ‘canonical territory’ and on world Orthodoxy itself.”
To make this as simple as possible, Putin has fused Russian identity with the ROC, sees his nation and his church as a bulwark against western decadence, and is now not just attempting to seize his church’s “Jerusalem” but potentially forcibly reuniting his church after a schism it rejects. There are nationalist, historical, and strategic reasons for Putin’s move against Ukraine, but the religious elements are real, and important.
The religious dimension of this conflict is yet another reason why the Cold War analogies are incorrect. As I’ve said before, Putin isn’t trying to recreate the Soviet Union. The better analogy is to the deeply religious Russian Empire that existed before the Russian Civil War.
This is the church at its worst, when it weds itself to state power and wields the sword to advance God’s kingdom on earth. We are watching the deep darkness of malevolent Christendom, a religious movement that will slaughter innocents to fight “decadence” and bomb hospitals to combat “sin.” When you see Putin’s armies advance, you can think, this is why our nation rejects established religion.
But when great evil arises, great good answers. And in this case, the great good is also in the church. Yes, it’s represented by individual Christian Ukrainian soldiers laying down their lives in defense of their nation and their homes, but it’s also represented by a very different kind of institutional Christian response.
I’m thinking, for example, of the report that the average Baptist World Alliance Church in Ukraine is “feeding and sheltering 100 people.” I’m thinking of Samaritan’s Purse setting up an emergency field hospital outside of Lviv, Ukraine. I’m thinking of churches like First Baptist Church of Robertsdale, Alabama, sending a team to Moldova to help Ukrainian refugees.
I’m also thinking of my colleague Harvest Prude’s moving story about the bonds between Christians in the United States and Christians in Ukraine:
“It’s personal for us in the Southern Baptist world,” Brent Leatherwood, acting president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, told The Dispatch. “Most folks don’t realize it, but Ukraine has the second largest population of Baptists in Europe.” In churches across America, Leatherwood said, pastors are utilizing prayer guides and partnering with Send Relief and other organizations helping on the ground.
I have friends who’ve spent time in Ukraine. Our churches are praying for Ukraine. They’re sending people and goods to Ukraine, flooding Eastern Europe with tangible support for a people who are suffering from terrible harm.
In this circumstance, national borders and national identities matter far less than the Christian brotherhood with Ukrainian churches and the shared humanity of Ukrainian refugees.
This is Christianity at its best. It’s not pacifistic. Its members are resisting tyranny with the force of arms. But its focus isn’t on conquest, but rather compassion. A religious war is being met with a religious response, and that religious response represents the true face of the faith that Putin purports to defend.
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David Sanger piece quotes Generals saying 2-3 weeks.
How Does It End? A Way Out of the Ukraine War Proves Elusive.
Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told lawmakers last week there was a limit to how long Kyiv could hold on as Russian forces edged closer from the east, north and south, tightening the vise. “With supplies being cut off, it will become somewhat desperate in, I would say, 10 days to two weeks,” General Berrier said.
Another senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence assessments, said it could take up to two weeks for Russian forces to encircle Kyiv and then at least another month to seize it. That would require a combination of relentless bombardment and what could be weeks or months of door-to-door street fighting.
“It will come at a very high price in Russian blood,” said retired Adm. James G. Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander for Europe. That high cost, he added, could cause Mr. Putin to destroy the city with an onslaught of missiles, artillery and bombs — “continuing a swath of war crimes unlike any we have seen in the 21st century.”