War
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Fogdog
Well-Known Member
Top level analysis of Putin's state of mind and his grip on (ahem) power during this time of crisis. The man is all class.
Putin consoles himself at strip club with friends as popularity plunges over Ukraine war
The Russian President took the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States to a strip club for a meeting of former Soviet Union countries.
By ALESSANDRA SCOTTO DI SANTOLO
09:29, Thu, Dec 29, 2022 | UPDATED: 09:30, Thu, Dec 29, 2022
Vladimir Putin took the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to his ex-mistress's strip club in St Petersburg. The Russian leader treated his guests at The Leningrad Centre as he faces a revolt in public opinion over his continuing invasion of Ukraine.
It didn't seem to help the mood of his "friends".
At the end of the summit, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan clashed with the Russian leader over Putin's reluctance to come to his aid in a conflict against Azerbaijan.
Tensions rose in September between Armenia and Azerbaijan and two sides say more than 200 soldiers died in the conflict.
Mr Pashinyan told his counterparts at the summit: “It is depressing that Armenia’s membership in the CSTO did not deter Azerbaijan from aggressive actions.
www.express.co.uk
Putin consoles himself at strip club with friends as popularity plunges over Ukraine war
The Russian President took the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States to a strip club for a meeting of former Soviet Union countries.
By ALESSANDRA SCOTTO DI SANTOLO
09:29, Thu, Dec 29, 2022 | UPDATED: 09:30, Thu, Dec 29, 2022
Vladimir Putin took the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to his ex-mistress's strip club in St Petersburg. The Russian leader treated his guests at The Leningrad Centre as he faces a revolt in public opinion over his continuing invasion of Ukraine.
It didn't seem to help the mood of his "friends".
At the end of the summit, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan clashed with the Russian leader over Putin's reluctance to come to his aid in a conflict against Azerbaijan.
Tensions rose in September between Armenia and Azerbaijan and two sides say more than 200 soldiers died in the conflict.
Mr Pashinyan told his counterparts at the summit: “It is depressing that Armenia’s membership in the CSTO did not deter Azerbaijan from aggressive actions.
Putin consoles himself at strip club as popularity plunges
The Russian President took the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States to a strip club for a meeting of former Soviet Union countries.
BudmanTX
Well-Known Member
aww guessing pooty didn't spring for the VIP package and the cristal.....owe wellTop level analysis of Putin's state of mind and his grip on (ahem) power during this time of crisis. The man is all class.
Putin consoles himself at strip club with friends as popularity plunges over Ukraine war
The Russian President took the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States to a strip club for a meeting of former Soviet Union countries.
By ALESSANDRA SCOTTO DI SANTOLO
09:29, Thu, Dec 29, 2022 | UPDATED: 09:30, Thu, Dec 29, 2022
Vladimir Putin took the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to his ex-mistress's strip club in St Petersburg. The Russian leader treated his guests at The Leningrad Centre as he faces a revolt in public opinion over his continuing invasion of Ukraine.
It didn't seem to help the mood of his "friends".
At the end of the summit, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan clashed with the Russian leader over Putin's reluctance to come to his aid in a conflict against Azerbaijan.
Tensions rose in September between Armenia and Azerbaijan and two sides say more than 200 soldiers died in the conflict.
Mr Pashinyan told his counterparts at the summit: “It is depressing that Armenia’s membership in the CSTO did not deter Azerbaijan from aggressive actions.
Putin consoles himself at strip club as popularity plunges
The Russian President took the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States to a strip club for a meeting of former Soviet Union countries.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
BudmanTX
Well-Known Member
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Lot's of drone strikes, this looks like an DIY FPV suicide drone.
doublejj
Well-Known Member
there will be a nice patch of sunflowers there this spring....
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Lot's of videos on Twitter of drone strikes, they are going to town on cheap $300 FPV suicide drones.
I don't think Vlad is gonna come close to raising, training, equipping and arming a half million men. This is a last desperate act before the western tanks are deployed this spring. He will be lucky to get another 200K into the fight by summer and then he will be fucked when the Ukrainians counterattack. It will be a repeat performance, forced to attack during mud season again while the Ukrainians defend, only an idiot attacks in mud season, or someone who is extremely desperate. I think the timing of the offensive aid was to strategically put Putin in this box and the box will be his coffin. He has to attack before the new western tanks come online. Beaten strategically and beaten tactically, they should be mostly gone from Ukraine by summer with Crimea cut off at least.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Netherlands, Denmark and Germany buy 100 Leopard 1 Tanks for Ukraine - Dutch gov't
The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany are buying 100 Leopard-1A5 battle tanks for Ukraine, the Dutch government said on Tuesday.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Europe's last empire: Putin’s Ukraine war exposes Russia’s imperial identity
Vladimir Putin's genocidal invasion of Ukraine has exposed modern Russia's unapologetically imperial identity but could yet lead to the collapse of the Kremlin's broader imperial ambitions, writes Botakoz Kassymbekova.
www.atlanticcouncil.org
Vladimir Putin insists Russians and Ukrainians are “one people” but his brutal invasion of Ukraine has revealed a remarkable lack of “brotherly” Russian empathy for Ukrainians. While many people in other former Soviet republics have identified with Ukraine’s suffering, relatively few Russian citizens have shown any sign of compassion or remorse for the genocidal violence being perpetrated in their name.
According to research conducted by Russia’s internationally respected independent pollster, the Levada Center, Russian public support for the war remained above 70% throughout 2022. Speaking to Germany publication Der Spiegel in early 2023, Levada Center scientific director Lev Gudkov observed that mounting evidence of the atrocities taking place in Ukraine had made virtually no impact on Russian public opinion. “The Russians have little compassion for the Ukrainians. Almost no one here talks about the fact that people are being killed in Ukraine.”
Much of the available evidence supports these poll findings and points to a remarkable absence of empathy. Millions of Ukrainians have friends and family in Russia. Many report being shocked by the lack of compassion they have encountered since the start of the invasion. Rather than sympathy or concern, they have been confronted by cold indifference, outright denials, or pro-Kremlin propaganda tropes.
The hundreds of thousands of Russians who fled the country over the past year have not staged any major anti-war rallies while in exile, despite no longer being subject to draconian Kremlin restrictions. Inside Russia itself, there have been no significant protests since the first weeks of the war. The contrast provided by mass anti-government rallies over the past twelve months in other repressive dictatorships such as China and Iran has cast the silence of the Russian population in an even more unfavorable light.
This apparent lack of empathy for the victims of Russian imperial aggression is nothing new. Many Russians displayed similar attitudes toward the two Chechen wars of the early post-Soviet era and the 2008 invasion of Georgia. More recently, the 2014 invasion of Crimea was widely cheered and remains arguably the most popular single event of Putin’s entire 23-year reign. Such thinking reflects the unapologetically imperial identity which the Russian Federation inherited from the Soviet and Czarist eras.
Modern Russian national identity remains firmly rooted in notions of a sacred imperial mission that perceives Russia as being a unique civilization locked in an eternal struggle against various constructed foreign enemies. Hundreds of years ago, the messianic vision of the czars gave rise to the idea of Russia as the Third Rome and leader of Orthodox Christianity. In the twentieth century, this belief in imperial exceptionalism was harnessed to identify Russians as the nation that would save the world from capitalism and lead a global communist revolution.
Under Putin, the lyrics may have changed but the tune remains largely the same. Indeed, it is telling that while Soviet communism has long since been consigned to the ash heap of history, today’s Russia has seamlessly inherited the USSR’s Cold War-era animosity toward NATO, the United States, and the Western world in general.
The sense of imperial mission pervading modern Russian society has helped nurture values of sacrifice and obligation at the expense of individual human rights. Many Russians take it for granted that they are destined to rule over other nations and interpret their colonialism as fundamentally benevolent, even when it is obviously unwelcome. Russia’s victims must be liberated, whether they like it or not.
Whether driven by the Orthodox faith, the communist ideology, or Putin’s far vaguer notions of a “Russian world,” this highly paternalistic brand of imperialism grants Russians the right to speak on behalf of their subject peoples. Accordingly, there is no need to actually listen to these conquered peoples or empathize with them, even while proclaiming them as “brothers.” Those who oppose this holy crusade are logically understood to be representatives of evil. It is no coincidence that a whole host of senior Russian officials include Putin himself have sought to frame the invasion of Ukraine as a battle against Satanists.
While Russian opposition figures are often critical of the Putin regime, they are typically far less outspoken on the topic Russian colonialism, the root cause of the current genocidal Ukraine invasion. Instead, some seek to portray themselves as the real victims of the Kremlin while failing to make the obvious connection between the authoritarianism they claim to oppose and the imperialism they choose to ignore. By blaming everything on Putin, they embrace the same convenient victimhood that the Kremlin itself promotes when faced by the negative consequences of its imperial policies.
The national mythologies of today’s Russia and Ukraine could hardly be more different. While many Russians readily embrace their country’s imperial identity, imperial ideas do not resonate in Ukraine. Even before the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion one year ago, Ukrainians already tended to define their national identity in terms of resistance to the narrative of submission, while prioritizing personal freedoms over obligations to the state.
Since the early 1990s, Ukraine’s post-Soviet nation-building journey has been shaped by a struggle for true independence. This has led to the merging of civic and anti-colonial resistance movements, with the country’s two Maidan revolutions serving as important landmarks on the road toward internal and external freedom.
For almost two decades, Ukraine’s trajectory has been viewed with mounting anger and alarm in the Kremlin. Haunted by the Soviet collapse of the late twentieth century, the Putin regime regards Ukraine’s democratization as an existential threat to its own authoritarian model and a potential catalyst for the next stage in Russia’s imperial retreat.
For the time being, other post-Soviet states such as Belarus and Kazakhstan act as alternatives to Ukraine’s anti-colonial identity. In these countries, domestic democratic development has been stifled by Kremlin-backed regimes that have chosen not to break decisively with the imperial past. However, there are signs that the current status quo may not be as stable as Moscow would like to think.
Ukraine’s defiant resistance to Russia’s invasion is energizing civil society throughout the former USSR and fueling unprecedented debate over the role of Russian colonialism. On the international stage, the war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in February 2022 has introduced contemporary global audiences to the realities of modern Russia’s imperial identity.
Commentators around the world are now actively discussing the practical implications of a post-colonial Russia. Such talk is no longer considered entirely fanciful. On the contrary, many now believe that defeat in Ukraine would deal a decisive blow to hopes of a new Russian Empire and transform the entire Eurasian political landscape. Ultimately, It is up to Russian society itself to dismantle the country’s imperial identity in order to reckon with the horrors of Russia’s past and address the crimes of the current genocidal war.
Botakoz Kassymbekova is Assistant Professor of Modern History at the University of Basel.
Roger A. Shrubber
Well-Known Member
he was a scumbag piece of shit, who gives a fuck who killed him? find out and i'll send them a box of chocolates.
Roger A. Shrubber
Well-Known Member
i think they meant "prosecuted'...but i could go for some persecution of putin.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
He was a victim of that old Russian imperial attitude mentioned in the article I posted above, so is Vlad and so are a lot of Russians. The difference between them and other former soviet republics says a lot, the populations fear and loath Russians. There is an increasing awareness in the west of this imperial aggressive attitude and it's profound link to the lack of liberal democracy in Russia. Liberal democracy would mean dissolution, a failed state and an end of rule by the secret police that goes back centuries.
Liberal democracy tends to destroy empires as it did with the UK. Gandhi was a UK trained lawyer and spotted the weakness of the empire as it evolved into a liberal democracy and used non violent means and PR to win hearts and minds, particularly in America. Gandhi's method of non violent protest only really works in a liberal democracy, if Hitler ran the place he would have shot Gandhi! After the Atlantic and UN charters the UK was morally and legally bound to give up the empire and did, though when the cold war started America was in no rush to see it go.
Roger A. Shrubber
Well-Known Member
The russians don't give a shit about what putin is doing, never have, and never will. Any hope of internal uprising is futile, the few who have the human emotions it requires to feel revulsion for their countries acts are doomed, they may commit some acts of defiance, but they don't have any popular support, and will eventually get caught, turned in, ratted out...Europe's last empire: Putin’s Ukraine war exposes Russia’s imperial identity
Vladimir Putin's genocidal invasion of Ukraine has exposed modern Russia's unapologetically imperial identity but could yet lead to the collapse of the Kremlin's broader imperial ambitions, writes Botakoz Kassymbekova.
Vladimir Putin insists Russians and Ukrainians are “one people” but his brutal invasion of Ukraine has revealed a remarkable lack of “brotherly” Russian empathy for Ukrainians. While many people in other former Soviet republics have identified with Ukraine’s suffering, relatively few Russian citizens have shown any sign of compassion or remorse for the genocidal violence being perpetrated in their name.
According to research conducted by Russia’s internationally respected independent pollster, the Levada Center, Russian public support for the war remained above 70% throughout 2022. Speaking to Germany publication Der Spiegel in early 2023, Levada Center scientific director Lev Gudkov observed that mounting evidence of the atrocities taking place in Ukraine had made virtually no impact on Russian public opinion. “The Russians have little compassion for the Ukrainians. Almost no one here talks about the fact that people are being killed in Ukraine.”
Much of the available evidence supports these poll findings and points to a remarkable absence of empathy. Millions of Ukrainians have friends and family in Russia. Many report being shocked by the lack of compassion they have encountered since the start of the invasion. Rather than sympathy or concern, they have been confronted by cold indifference, outright denials, or pro-Kremlin propaganda tropes.
The hundreds of thousands of Russians who fled the country over the past year have not staged any major anti-war rallies while in exile, despite no longer being subject to draconian Kremlin restrictions. Inside Russia itself, there have been no significant protests since the first weeks of the war. The contrast provided by mass anti-government rallies over the past twelve months in other repressive dictatorships such as China and Iran has cast the silence of the Russian population in an even more unfavorable light.
This apparent lack of empathy for the victims of Russian imperial aggression is nothing new. Many Russians displayed similar attitudes toward the two Chechen wars of the early post-Soviet era and the 2008 invasion of Georgia. More recently, the 2014 invasion of Crimea was widely cheered and remains arguably the most popular single event of Putin’s entire 23-year reign. Such thinking reflects the unapologetically imperial identity which the Russian Federation inherited from the Soviet and Czarist eras.
Modern Russian national identity remains firmly rooted in notions of a sacred imperial mission that perceives Russia as being a unique civilization locked in an eternal struggle against various constructed foreign enemies. Hundreds of years ago, the messianic vision of the czars gave rise to the idea of Russia as the Third Rome and leader of Orthodox Christianity. In the twentieth century, this belief in imperial exceptionalism was harnessed to identify Russians as the nation that would save the world from capitalism and lead a global communist revolution.
Under Putin, the lyrics may have changed but the tune remains largely the same. Indeed, it is telling that while Soviet communism has long since been consigned to the ash heap of history, today’s Russia has seamlessly inherited the USSR’s Cold War-era animosity toward NATO, the United States, and the Western world in general.
The sense of imperial mission pervading modern Russian society has helped nurture values of sacrifice and obligation at the expense of individual human rights. Many Russians take it for granted that they are destined to rule over other nations and interpret their colonialism as fundamentally benevolent, even when it is obviously unwelcome. Russia’s victims must be liberated, whether they like it or not.
Whether driven by the Orthodox faith, the communist ideology, or Putin’s far vaguer notions of a “Russian world,” this highly paternalistic brand of imperialism grants Russians the right to speak on behalf of their subject peoples. Accordingly, there is no need to actually listen to these conquered peoples or empathize with them, even while proclaiming them as “brothers.” Those who oppose this holy crusade are logically understood to be representatives of evil. It is no coincidence that a whole host of senior Russian officials include Putin himself have sought to frame the invasion of Ukraine as a battle against Satanists.
While Russian opposition figures are often critical of the Putin regime, they are typically far less outspoken on the topic Russian colonialism, the root cause of the current genocidal Ukraine invasion. Instead, some seek to portray themselves as the real victims of the Kremlin while failing to make the obvious connection between the authoritarianism they claim to oppose and the imperialism they choose to ignore. By blaming everything on Putin, they embrace the same convenient victimhood that the Kremlin itself promotes when faced by the negative consequences of its imperial policies.
The national mythologies of today’s Russia and Ukraine could hardly be more different. While many Russians readily embrace their country’s imperial identity, imperial ideas do not resonate in Ukraine. Even before the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion one year ago, Ukrainians already tended to define their national identity in terms of resistance to the narrative of submission, while prioritizing personal freedoms over obligations to the state.
Since the early 1990s, Ukraine’s post-Soviet nation-building journey has been shaped by a struggle for true independence. This has led to the merging of civic and anti-colonial resistance movements, with the country’s two Maidan revolutions serving as important landmarks on the road toward internal and external freedom.
For almost two decades, Ukraine’s trajectory has been viewed with mounting anger and alarm in the Kremlin. Haunted by the Soviet collapse of the late twentieth century, the Putin regime regards Ukraine’s democratization as an existential threat to its own authoritarian model and a potential catalyst for the next stage in Russia’s imperial retreat.
For the time being, other post-Soviet states such as Belarus and Kazakhstan act as alternatives to Ukraine’s anti-colonial identity. In these countries, domestic democratic development has been stifled by Kremlin-backed regimes that have chosen not to break decisively with the imperial past. However, there are signs that the current status quo may not be as stable as Moscow would like to think.
Ukraine’s defiant resistance to Russia’s invasion is energizing civil society throughout the former USSR and fueling unprecedented debate over the role of Russian colonialism. On the international stage, the war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in February 2022 has introduced contemporary global audiences to the realities of modern Russia’s imperial identity.
Commentators around the world are now actively discussing the practical implications of a post-colonial Russia. Such talk is no longer considered entirely fanciful. On the contrary, many now believe that defeat in Ukraine would deal a decisive blow to hopes of a new Russian Empire and transform the entire Eurasian political landscape. Ultimately, It is up to Russian society itself to dismantle the country’s imperial identity in order to reckon with the horrors of Russia’s past and address the crimes of the current genocidal war.
Botakoz Kassymbekova is Assistant Professor of Modern History at the University of Basel.
The only time they've protested the war was when Slavic russians started to get conscripted. They didn't give one thin fuck when it was ethnic russians, who they consider less than human, so no loss if they get killed while murdering innocent civilians.
All this means that once putin loses power, we'll have very little chance of his replacement being substantially different, and we'll have to maintain a watchful eye on them, waiting for their next act of imperialistic mass murder.
Roger A. Shrubber
Well-Known Member
Victim?...He wasn't any kind of victim...He was a traitor illegally occupying stolen territory. He's lucky someone gave him the mercy of a bullet in the back of the head, instead of dragging him back to Kyiv for public trial and execution.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Cold war 2 will see them driven from Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia, if they want peace and breathing room. They will be ringed and hemmed in by their many neighbors and enemies, former Soviet republics or vassal states. The will most likely form a defensive alliance backed by NATO with Ukraine as it's cornerstone. Then there is trouble in Vlad's own backyard and someone might just blow up some rail bridges in Siberia. In an era of GPS guided drones, the Russian's utter dependency on railways can be exploited easily by drones carrying a 500 or 1000lb bombs taking out rail bridges. They could chop the country into pieces and put a big load on vehicles and fuel, there are no spare parts for most vehicles and the more they are used the faster they wear out.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Well something brain washed the idiot like a Trumper at the capitol! Why exactly are they in Ukraine, money aside? The Russians are victims of bullshit, they gave up their freedom for the myth of empire and a sense of superiority and nationalist destiny that is deeply embedded in the culture. You might as well try and eradicate racism from the white people of the south, it is culturally ingrained, systemic and institutionalized.