Comments by "Emir" (@irongron) on "Силиконовый занавес"
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Colonel Ingram is a great guest, I always like to hear what he has to say, but I take issue with the comparison of "russia" breaking up making the former Yugoslavia look like a "Sunday school picnic", my father's Bosnian side were all ethnically cleansed from their home town of Bosanski Novi 35 years ago almost, and are now all over the world in Canada, the USA & Australia. They can never go back as Bosanski Novi is now in Republika Srpska and renamed "Novi Grad". No "Sunday School picnic" for them. The USSR had 40,000 nukes (yes, 40,000 google it) when it broke up in 1991 without any major wars like in Yugoslavia, so why is the break up of "russia" with a piddling 7,000 nukes a "huge worry" ? The world community dealt with that ok and here in Ukraine we do not consider the breakup of "russia" a huge worry, but a must or they will just keep doing the same 💩 they always do. Like the USSR, "russia" must go! No ifs or buts.
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I'm not Ukrainian but have been a permanent resident since just before the first war in 2014, and I can attest to what Mr Buzarov said about Donetsk City not being neglected or run down. In fact it seemed like a quite impressive modern city to me when I first moved here a decade ago almost. My wife lived in Makiivka, which is like a smaller satellite city that is more or less integrated into Donetsk City due to urban growth and even Makiivka was not that bad, mr wifes neighbourhood was probably one of the more run-down quarters of Makiivka and it was not horrible, the back roads had some potholes but the main road where her flat was, Bogdan Khmelnitsky street, was very good. That flat has been lost since 2014 in the so called DNR now. I bought a new flat to replace it in Pokrovsk a few years later and now we had to leave that one too, mostly because the University she works for moved to a a very safe part of NW Ukraine, whereas Pokrovsk is semi-dangerous to dangerous currently. the city we are in now in NW Ukraine has only been bombed twice in the time we've been here, (over a year) so I would call it almost-safe, I would rather live here than Chicago USA for instance!
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The well known (in Ukraine) journalist Dmitry Gordon conducted an extensive interview with Igor Girkin for 3 hours and in that interview he admits to the Crimea and Donbas operations. The Crimea operations with the little green men fooled no one, it was Russian soldiers already stationed in Sevastopol. The Donbas situation was always passed off as a "local uprising" which is complete and utter nonsense, for two reasons, I was there and witnessed it first hand as it unfolded (since when do local uprisings have heavy artillery?). I'm paraphrasing but it went something like this, starting with a cleverly worded question from Dmitri Gordon - Gordon: "In 2014 you illegally crossed over the border onto the territory of Ukraine in Donbas can you elaborate or discuss this further" Girkin: "Of course, I crossed over the border with 54 (or maybe 53, I forget, watched it 5 years ago) men, we had hardly any arms and ammunition...etc etc". Once he had done it and it could not be called off, the Kremlin went all in and send more men and they got heavy weapons, some of them appropriated from a local army base with sympathisers. If you want to watch this interview and you understand Russian (otherwise use auto-subs) look for this title on YouTube (there is a comprehensive index in about the 4th comment down) "Гиркин (Стрелков). Донбасс, MH17, Гаага, ФСБ, полудохлый Путин, Сурков, Божий суд. "ГОРДОН" (2020)" Interestingly, Girkin discusses his disdain for Putin and the kremlinite oligarchs/siloviki etc greedy corruption and for Denis Pushilin, the leader of the so-called DNR!
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This conversation with Inna is really important. On Russian state TV they call Ukrainian a "southern Russian dialect", that's complete and utter BS. My Ukrainian wife is an asscoaite professor of langauges. But let me give my own insight as a South slav (i.e. Jugoslav). Archeological digs have confirned, even back in Soviet times that the langauge of Kyivan Rus was closest to what is now called modern day Ukrainian, NOT Russian. This is via garffitti on the archelogical finds, but it's not spray paint that coms to mind, it's like scraped into the wood, if you have ever visited Saint Sofia church in Kyiv you can see this graffitti on the walls there if you look carefully. Secondly and very impoertant for me as a Jugoslav, there is actual eveidence in the south slavic langauges that Urkainain is the older langague because we have close similarities with both Russian and Ukrainain words, but if you go back far enough the Ukrainian words came into our laguages in the balkans first. This lends eveidence to the fact Ukrainian is the older tongue. NOT Russian, it came later, - like a cousin lamguage, but defenitely not the ancinet langauge Russians make it to be.
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At the start of the show Mr Terry mentions, the older people in the East who have spoken Russian all their lives and now they are trying to switch over to Ukrainian & speak a "hybrid" language. It has a name, "Surzhyk". When I first moved to Ukraine a decade ago, I settled in Donetska Oblast & everyone spoke Russian there, so I had no chance to learn Ukrainian, even though that was my preference (My ancestry is the former Yugoslavia, so I already know what used to be called Serbo-Croatian). Anyway, when my wife and I became IDP'S in 2022 and were forced to move to West Ukraine, I started to convert, but I spoke a mixture of both, called "Surzhyk", actually, it's more like a form of "Yugo-Surhyk", as sometimes I sub-consciously throw in a Yugoslav word, when lost for both. Also it's a pure co-incidence for me that the region I settled in, in Donetska Oblast used to be called "Pryazovia" (the Russians wiped out the term by contriving the "Donbas" construct - from DONetsky coal BASsien i.e. DONetsk coal BASin - to wipe out Ukrainian identity in the East) & there were lots of Balkan (i.e. former Yugoslav) people who settled there, so it felt like I belonged there too! Hopefully Jonathon will have Ukrainian Philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko back on to discuss the problematic nature of the name " Donbas".
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Indeed, Hein was an excellent guest. I really liked the way John and Hein sounded like they were just "shooting the breeze", in a casual conversation. Definitely agree he must come back for another show later on. As I have aid many times, I've had to abandon my home in Donbas and my city (Pokrovsk) is not occupied yet and I'd like to see a victory where the Russians are driven out once and for all so my wife and I can go home.. I'm not Ukrainian, I've lived here for almost a decade, but I can say that most other Ukrainians feel the same way. If the lads want to keep fighting to save their families, then so be it. It's sad and scary but these Russians just won't F off and leave us alone. Crimea defintely has to be next, it sounds impossible but really it's eaiser than taking back the DNR and LNR, as they can be supllied directly over the border by Russia, If the Ukrianian army can cut off Crimea, re-supply will be very hard for Russia,, of course we'll have to hit the Kerch strait bridge again, or "re-visit" it as good ol' General Hodges puts it!
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With the nukes, I had to make this as a separate comment, because it is so important. Leonid Kravchuk, the first President of Ukraine, went to his grave regretting letting Bill Clinton and Bush Senior, tricking him into giving up the nukes. Also it is complete and utter nonsense that the "codes were all controlled from Moscow" and that keeping the nukes was useless.The soviet Union never implemented PAL's (i.e. Permissive Action Links, technology which the USA shared the the USSR), because it as too backwards and if communications was lost with Moscow, how could they launch the nukes ? The codes could be over-ridden, I remember an old ex-Soviet Ukrainian retired General stating this a decade ago at least, confirming this. So forget what other "russia adjacent" pundits et. al. tell you regarding this.
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Look, before I say this, I want to mention that I was at the event you held at Lyiv a bit over a year ago, and I met both you and Mr Sweeney and shook your hands. I love you both, you are true friends of Ukraine, but I have to push back on something. ,At 16:20, Mr Sweeney says that, "..under the Czars, until they lost the Crimean war, the vast population were not free, they were Serfs...Slav, if I think the etymology is correct, the base word for slave..." - this is complete and utter nonsense. There was even a National Geographic article that peddled this falsehood. It is more commonly agreed with scholars and academics that the word "Slav" came from the world "Slovo", i.e. people of the word. This is because the old slavic word for Germans is "nemtsi" (people who are dumb - unintelligible). In the former Yugoslavia where my ancestors came from the word for Germany is not "Germaniya" like it is in ruzzian, it is "Njemachka", derived from the eastern slavic Kyivan Rus word "nemtsi". When Kyivan Rus fell, my ancestors migrated to the Balkans, -these where the "Beli Horvati" tribe - ("White Croat" tribe). There was also a Red Croats tribe too (hence the red and white checkered flag pf Croatia). In Ukraine the word is also "Nimechchyna". RuZZia is not a good gauge of the historical etymology of our words!!!
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The next time Captain Hendrix is back on, I'd like to know what he thinks of Admiral James Foggo's assertion that it was a mistake (in hindsight) for the USN to reduce its presence in the Black Sea after the end of the Cold War & Soviet Union collapsed. Admiral Foggo has been saying that the USN "needs to get back in there" - of course it can't do that now due to the Montreux convention - but get back in there ASAP when the conditions permit. Even in late Soviet times, there was a lot of action in the Black Sea, I doubt anyone besides myself, the host and Captain Hendrix would be aware of the "Black Sea shouldering incident" in 1988, the hilarious thing is, if that happened now everyone would be screaming "OMG WW3 OMG ESCALATION", but back then it was not so hysterical. President Ronald Reagan's "peace through strength" in action, and it worked.
from Wikipedia "1988 Black Sea bumping incident"
"The Black Sea bumping incident of 12 February 1988 occurred when American cruiser USS Yorktown tried to exercise the right of innocent passage through Soviet territorial waters in the Black Sea during the Cold War. The cruiser was bumped by the Soviet frigate Bezzavetny with the intention of pushing Yorktown into international waters. This incident also involved the destroyer USS Caron, sailing in company with USS Yorktown and claiming the right of innocent passage, which was intentionally shouldered by a Soviet Mirka-class frigate SKR-6. Yorktown reported minor damage to its hull, with no holing or risk of flooding. Caron was undamaged."
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@medeology4660 wow, well said, I hear ya, but from my decade living in Ukraine, the spirit of the people is such that they refuse to descend into darkness of mind, even just recently, over Xmas, there was people all over the city where my wife and I are IDP's singing carols and not letting the ruZZian savagery drag them down, to not foster negative emotions. I totally agree that President Zelensky has become more "steeled" as you said, a very serious and stern man, but I think he will not let the heavy burden he shouldered totally kill his comic spirit! Well lets hope so anyway!
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WIth the "Oligarch" situation between Russia & Ukraine, you are spot on, Oligarchy by the text book definition, implies roughly equal power between the oligarchs, this is what we have here in Ukraine and as Anton pointed out, Russia does not, Russia is not an Oligarchy, becasue the top dog is the only one with power, that is what is called a Kleptocracy, Putin and his ilk are all Kleptocrats not Oligarchs. Anyway, great stuff John, your work is top shelf!
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Right on Jonathon, what Hanna states at the start of the show re: the real problem was not Communism, it was just an iteration or evolution of the real problem - Russian Imperialism. In 1991 everyone thought, "great, we got rid of Communism problem solved" - WRONG & very naive. From the article - Deceit, Dread, and Disbelief: The Story of How Ukraine Lost Its Nuclear Arsenal - First President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk talking to last Soviet Foreign Minister and first President of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze.....take note of the prophetic last sentence, "They are still sick with imperial infection"....
“I would understand Russia’s nastiness,” Kravchuk lamented, “But Americans are even worse—they do not listen to our arguments.” Shevardnadze remarked to his fellow post-Soviet leader: The Americans do not know about our terrible, rough relations with the Russian empire and the USSR. Without that knowledge, building predictable and trustworthy relations with ‘democratic Yeltsin and Russia’ would be very difficult, whom the Americans currently call ‘Russian democrats’...I know many of them, talked to them a lot. They are still sick with imperial infection."
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I used to live in Australia before moving to Ukraine a decade ago and to put it in the vernacular that only Lesa will understand "she's a fair dinkum good lady!". For sure Ukrainian is more softer and melodic than Russian which is harsher. Compare the harsh Russian greeting "Zdrastvuitye" (pronounced "ZDARST-VOOOT-YEAH") to the way softer Ukrainian "Vitayu" (pron. VEE-TAH-YOU). When I first moved to Ukraine from Aus, I settled in Donbas and everyone spoke russian there, so that's what I had to learn over my preference to speak Ukrainian. Anyway I agree with Lesa, Russian harsh (like German), Ukrainian softer. One thing with "Da" (yes), I am IDP in West Ukraine and everyone here speaks Ukrainian only, never hear russian, but the one russian word I do hear everyone use here sometimes is "Da" (mixed in with Tak), it's just so ingrained every now then everyone says "Da", kinda sub-consciously I suppose. I exclusively use "Tak"! Currently as I am crossing over, I speak a language called "Surzhyk", which is russian and Ukrainian mixed up. My first language was what used to be called Serbo-Croatian i.e. "Jugoslavian" (Father Bosnian, Mother Serbian) before English, so when I am lost for a russian or Ukrainian word I unconsciously use a Jugoslav word and kinda speak a weird "Jugo-Surzhyk"!
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At the 6:40 min mark Lesia mentions the "...division between West and East Ukraine that has to be acknowledged...". Indeed, but there is more nuance, especially to the Eastern part. A common myth is that the eastern part is all Russian speaking. There's maps that generalise the demographics of language so much it is misleading. When I loved to Ukraine a decade ago, I lived in Donetska Oblast (am IDP in West Ukraine now). Yes all the big towns, like my home town of Pokrovsk, or even Donetsk City or the sister city next to it Makiivka, where my Ukrainian wife had a flat that we lost to the so-called DNR - they spoke Russian, BUT, here's the but...lots of the small villages in between these places, even the ones around Pokrovsk, people there spoke Ukrainian mostly, NOT Russian! But the vatniks will pull out those maps and say "All of Eastern Ukraine is Russian speaking" - this is just complete and utter nonsense. But hardly anyone, who doesn't live here would know that. Also recently on a trip to Zakarpatia to a town only 5km from the Romanian border, as far West as you can get in Ukraine, the maid that changed our sheets in our room, I thanked her in Ukrainian "Duzhe djakuyu" and she replied "Pazhalsta" (i.e. the Russian word for "budlaska", she spoke a kinda of mixture of both languages called "Surzhyk"). As Lesia pointed out Ukraine could have been better with the facts and messaging, it just got lost in all the noise peddled by the Kremlin and their vatnik stooges in the west.
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You're pretty much well guaranteed a top half insightful conversation with the Chatham House experts, (or even just any Silicon Curtain guest, tbh) probably one of the best think tanks in the world in terms of staffing, especially the Russia & Eurasia programme. Contrast that with some of the popular alt-media outfits, which are almost all highly contrarian anti-NATO/US pro-Russia Kremlin mouthpieces (e.g. The Grayzone, Convo-Couch, Sunday Wire, TNT Radio,Not The BCFM Politics show from Bristol, MOATS with GG, The Richie Allen show etc )) that get biased ultra-Russophiles and present tham as an expert on "Ukraine" (Ince when is a Russophile an. expert on Ukraine ? really!)
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Same here. John should have her back to talk about the other issues she works with down the track. I've lived in Ukraine for alsmot a decade and a lot of the BS that well intentioned news and radio and podcadts really jumps out at me, becasue I know what's what, compared to someone who isnt from ehre. An example was today I listed to Geopilotics Decanted as it regularly features Miucheal Koffman who's very good with teh mil rundowns and the host Dimitri Alperovitch, whom I hav e a lot fo respect for, he means well and is not a propagandfist. but tofday he said that he thinks there is now ay Russia would do such a thing as blow up the fam and he thinks it wsa pobsbly sn scvcidernt ot a mistsake, he was totally excluding tyhe glaringly obvious suvh as, the stops being closed to fiull the fdam, wy ? That this conincided with tyhe offensive kicking off to thrart it....very siuspicious anfd he said the excuse all the Russian mouthpieces p'edlde now "why would Russia take out the Crimean water supply" it is not in their interests and makes no sense to tzke it out. BUt he fails to take into account their reckless modus operandi and also that, they KNOW they are going to loe Crimea and we wll reclai m it, and are factoring in that in their reasoning for wrecking the peninsula as much as possible for when we take it back. IT's toaly something that they would do and have demonstarted in Ukraine sincer day one. THey don't give a f**k about anzything, even their own men!!!......SO it was very dissappointing to ehar Dmitri go down the path of making excuses for RUssia! BUt thats ok, it wont turn me off listenign to Geoplitics Decanted. It's good stuff, esp co Koffman is a regular@ !
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That period when Buill was doing bvusiness in the Yeltsin years really was when Russia had the true Oligarchy, when they all banded to together to help Yeltsin beat Communist Party leader Zyuganov in 1996. I heard some commentator say only the other day, froget who now, maybe one of the retired Generals on TImes Radio or a Silicom Curttain preserntstion, that in defeating the communists in 1996, by hook or crook, we may have gotten something way worse. I tend to agree with that assesment. Another interesting thing about the Yeltson era, Iforget where I read this , possibly a boiography of Leonid Kravchuk (first President of a free Ukraine) that back then the Russian nationalists had plans to seize Crimea but Yeltsin put a stop to it, not because he cared about Ukraine so much, nut more because it would set a precident for the Chechens to leave Russia, "Hey if Crimea can leave Ukraine we can leave RUssia!" type of hypocrisy he wanted to avoid. Intertesting stuff!
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I typed this on linked-in half an hour ago, I may as well paste it here too. Ruzzia is ramping up, our Western friends need to "tamp up" too. I know our American friends are doing so with their production, but they do need to go harder. The big worry is the EU, that has way too many, to put it politely - "Putin boot lickers" - and people might think I am singling out Hungary or Slovakia for obvious reasons (Orban & Fico). Oh no, they're small fry in the "big game" of Putin boot licking within the EU, I am talking about Germany & France. They have huge numbers of anti-Ukrainian #vatnik officials that need to be dealt with. An example is, Angela Merkel thought she was on our side, and tried to act like she was, but really she was Europe's greatest #vatnik.
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@pipe_currency Indeed Brian, if you look at the big picture, which you would be ware of due to your stint here paralleling mine, the areas of infrastructure that were the responsibility of the government were. not that bad, i.e. the aforementioned roads, airports and train stations etc. If there was any neglect, it would have been maybe the privately owned (by the oligarchs) things like the mines, where they extracted as much obscene profits as they could, keeping in mind, all assets sold off quickly to the "nomenklatura" to break the Soviet system post 1990/91 and of course back then all the orders came from Moscow, whether it was Gorbachev or drunk Yeltsin, before the official dissolution in December 1991 with Gorbachev's resignation.
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@boblacks945 Honestly, never, in fact my wife and I and about 30 of her colleagues from her university in Donbas (where everyone spoke Russian) are refugee's in NW Ukraine and most of us still use Russian although everyone is trying to change. We have never been accosted or abused in that time here in Western Ukraine. The thing that some of the "traitors" in the east in Donbas made a big deal of was that you had to use Ukrainian when filling out government paperwork sometime post 2014, which is fair enough, ironically they'd help you to filll out this paperwork in Ukrainian whilst conversing Russian with you! This was the case I experienced when finalising my permanent residency paperwork which was completed in 2015 after a year and a bit. In fact by a co-incidence, only today Youtuber Jake Broe, a true friend of Ukraine, made a presentation where he featured the Japanese man who moved to Kharkiv to open a cafe serving 1,000 free meals to Ukrainians every day. If you go to the 29 min mark and watch from there you'll see it, the comment I made there explains the rest - "In that first "feel good" clip you can hear a lady quite clearly thank Mr Tsuchiko in Russian, (Spasibo Balshoe = Thank you very much) demonstrating that speaking Russian does not mean "is Russian", just like speaking English does not mean "is an Englander". English and Russian are simply both languages of Empire and conquest that's all. English being former in that sense, Russian, current."
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@j.k.1239 The same can be said of people speaking Ukrainian during 2014 onwards when Igor Girkin and his provacatuers agitated, you'd get the s**t beat out of you by an angry crowd if you even tried to utter anything in Ukrainian, Look I know some people, especially those who suffered directly Russian cruelty or lost someone, might be like that, it's never happened to any of us in West Ukraine as refugee's/IDP's. We still speak Russian amongst ourselves at restuarants or together but use Urkainian to speak to the waiters, in another situation like at a "magazin" (shop). We've never been hassled. Look back in 2014 even up untill this re-invasion the rule was, if you went to a restuarant, and you spoke Russian OR Ukrainian, the waiters would match whatever language you spoke. I think whoever was aksing that up there meant from that entire period 2014 onwards. I'd like to see those videos as a bunch could be staged, like the staged fake video of "Ukrainian soldiers" accosting a woman they pulled up in a car for speaking Russian, it turned out that was DNR guys staging a fake video to make us look bad here in Urkaine.
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I spent a lot of time arguing with ruZzians trolls how have "appropriated" Korolyov, like everything in their culture. They would claim he was "Russian" but in all his documents he would put for question "Natsionalnist" (Nationality), "Ukrayinets" (Ukrainian). I have visited the Korolyov home in Zhitomir where he was born and the museum across the road. (The ruZZians attacked the town, it's near Kyiv)). I recommend the book by James Harford "Korolev: How one man masterminded the Soviet drive to beat America to the moon" (because it was the Soviet period he uses the Russian transliterations for everything). At 6:45 Yaroslav mentions "wrong scissions by the Communist party", one major F up, Brezhnev's cancellation of the N1 manned lunar launch vehicle (Soviet "Saturn V") in 1974. They had 2 flight ready launch vehicles ready to go, on the pad, at Tyuratam (vehicle's 8L & 9L - L= "Luniy" - moon) that would have proven the concept, but they where ordered scrapped, after 4 launch failures. N1 had a large cluster of 30 engines in the first stage (Block A), smaller & cheaper than the 5 huge Rocketdyne F-1 Engines on the US Saturn V. It's no co-incidence Elon Musk's "Spaceship" launch vehicle uses a large cluster of 33 engines it its first stage. He's what you call in Russian "ochen skupoy chelovek" ("very stingy (or cheap) man", just like the Soviet Communist's cheapness). The "N" in N1 means "nossitel" = carrier. After victory here in this war I reckon you could pitch the idea of a Korolyov movie to President Zelensky;s TV production company and he'd do it as a serious thing after the burden of war leadership drains the comic out of him (Yaroslav should tweet the President on Twitter and plant the seed of the idea in him!!!). I could talk about Korolyov in detail all day, best SC episode for me ever!!!!
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Keir Giles actually mentioned the other day, on Pyotr Kurzin's channel, that Kursk has dropped of the news a bit, but that's not so bad, because it's become normalised, and then Mr Garner mentions how Putin said when asked about Kursk, "vse normalno, spokoyno!" - all is normal, it's calm/quiet!" - Keir Giles vindicated 💯. Finally, Mr Garner's Russian is very good, just those 3 words gave away, with his annunciation, he knows how to speak Russian, as does the host Jonathon.
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Mr Pearce brings up a very good point off the bat, about "self-agrandisement" I've seen a lot of people that have inserted themselves into the situation here post 2022, (where were they in 2014 ? The only guy here in 2014 was Greg Terry BUT......). and for some, it's all about them, there's one guy,, won't mention his name, but he always says "it's not about about me", but in fact, it's always about him. Everyone's throwing around "Slava Ukrayiniy" like a cheap slogan. they don't even say it right. As famous footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic said that sums up this well, if you care about a charity, why show off about how much you give, just STFU and do it, don't show off about it. Everyone's problematic in their own way, except for Will Blackburn, he does runs into the front line but he never shows off about it on youtube to an almost crass level. If Mr Blackburn wasn't on this show the other day, no one would even know who he is. A quiet achiever, not a loud mouth, blow in.😐
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The song "TDME" on the words of the frontman of the group "Antityla" Taras Topolia became the first studio work after the autumn concert pause, but at the same time dense work in the studio over the new album. Maxim Sivolap, Sergiy Vusik and Taras Topolia wrote music for the song. The group was inspired by the creation of a desperate, but daring deed, of a scientist-oceanographer Stanislav Kurilov, who became famous for his daring escape from the USSR. The scientist jumped overboard from a passenger ship in the Pacific Ocean on December 13, 1974, and floating three days and three nights to the Philippine island, overtaking more than a hundred miles, following his dream. A citizen of the Universe, Stanislav Kurilov, simply could not accept the framework in which it was driven by a totalitarian state.
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I remember when I was a kid the National Geographic did a story on the Estonian SSR, can't recall the exact time, but circa 1973/4, it was an old one my father had, used to love reading them as a kid. Anyway in that article the thing that always stood out to me was that the NatGeo reporter who did the story on the ground there observers that the Estonians, when out on the street and they ran into a pair of Soviet *
(usually Russian ethnicity) ""Militsiya" (i.e. kinda like Police, more of the Gendarme type). Anyway whenever they ran into these Soviet oppressors who they considered invaders they'd shout out to them in Russian "GO LOAF AROUND IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY!!!" hahaha, that always cracked me up, cheeky Estonians, but hey it was fully justified and a humorous trait.. The NetGeo only had the english translation and unfortunately not the original Russian & I don't know the word in Russian for "loafing" which means hanging about with no reason or purpose, but maybe their slogan went something like "idi i boltatsya bez dela v svoyey strane" ? :)
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Mr. Smith & Colonel Ingram are a great return panel, hopefully they become regular return guests, pretty much well on par, with Mark Toth & Jon Sweet as a well integrated combo pair that knows their stuff. One more point, about the secrecy of the Kursk operation - last years summer "counter offensive, the original plan was to go cut the land bridge in the territory of the Karkhovka Dam, and because everyone blabbed about it, the Russians blew the dam and f**ked up our plan. THat's part of the reason the counter never worked, that and the Sorovikin line, but we'd chosen the weakest point to hit at it and the flooding of the land in that region ruined that, probably, as Jonathon intimated, the plans got leaked to the Kremlin via Washington.
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Sasha on russians - "spineless atomised individuals" - 100% spot on. Those million odd that ran away like rats from a sinking ship to Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan etc, instead of all going to red square to over-throw their czar. What really irks me is theres a cabal in Tashkent stuffing their faces with fancy restaurant food every day at "the breakfast club" living the high life in really nice apartments, while on front line towns Ukrainians starve in wrecked homes with no windows, gas, power or water and hardly any food. These spineless russians are so crass they brag & show off about it on YT, rubbing it in our faces grifting money for fancy restoran meals. For instance my wife and have spent 2 years in a run down ex-soviet refugee flat in NW Ukraine and can't afford to eat fancy restaurant meals daily, nor even once a week, since leaving Donbas last year.. These Tashkent cowards aren't having their day ruined by air raid sirens, it took me 3 trips the other day to be able to go to the bank, walk there, air raid goes off , have to go home, same again, then 4 hours later I make it to the bank without an air raid. These russians that ran away living the high life are "сволоч" just like that old lady Vera Ivanova said in a street interview that went viral.
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@deanejoyce5393 Cool, 'cos if you're an associate of Johnathon, your "street cred" is rock solid. Mate I tried in the past years before the re-invasion, on a liive radio net/podcast of mostly "conspiracy nutters", you know "tankies" and "vatniks" who hate the "NATO pentagon cabal" but benefit from the freedoms that cabal gives them to bad mouth Ukraine & be Kremlin mouthpieces without fear. I did many podcasts. The host, Chuck Ochelli was good enough to not be a Putin boot licker like all his alt-media colleagues. But in the end no matter how much I demonstrated the history of violence going back 500 years or more by Muscovy and later the Russian empire, pre 1948, you still had d-heads calling in going with the "poor Russia, victim of NATO" BS. Even if you brought up "so who provoked the wars before 1948, was that NATO expansion" (very sarcastically), these frackin' morons would just repeat the Kremlin BS! I've even got a better story than all the above, Chuck got a job at TNT live radio in Queensland Australia for 60K a year. TNT is funded by that fair dinkum drongo and putin boot licker Mike Ryan (not to be confused with Maj Gen Mick Ryan). Anyway Chuck invited me to talk about Ukraine on his debut night there and the next day TNT contacted Chuck to have a Zoom meeting regarding "content issues". The upshot is they said I was never to be invited on a guest again and they told him to change his tone about Ukraine and Russia. Being a somewhat man of honour he declined to be forced to be a Putin boot licker and propagandist and within few days Mike Ryan and TNT sacked him. He didn't een last a week. Talk about disgusting and if you check the TNT website they brag about being "honest" with news. What a bunch of f'in wankers. Propaganda dirtbags peddling Kremlin BS. I just grew tired of wasting my time.
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Mr. Smith is a very interesting guest, a great man and a great discussion, much appreciated. When you mentioned "escalation management" and he corrected you and said it was appeasement, I will mention to all readers in your defence Jonathon, that you also have called it this for a long time, ditto for myself too. Another thing that jumped out at me was Mr. Smith's mention of "s different form of communism under Tito", well in Yugoslavia at that time we could travel freely, own a small business and farms remained in private hands, there was no disastrous "Sovkhoz" or "Kolkhoz" collective farms. Keep in mind that Tito broke with Stalin and left he Soviet Bloc in 1948 successfully (unlike poor Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Hungary in 1956). And lastly, I don't think we are ever getting the F-16's. We were supposed to have them last new years, now mid year, this month. It's never gonna happen. Thank you Jake Sullivan and Samuel Charap (massive sarcasm). 😐
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Great discussion with Professor Grunewald, she briefly touched on the aircraft industry, as part of her general outline. I can do a value add comment for her here, as my personal studies going back to the late 80's was Soviet Aerospace. Susan mentioned the freedom some "camps" had (like the Germans building the 2nd tallest university in Moscow) plus also how late some were held (as late as 1955). These 2 points are very closely related to the prison "workplaces" (they were more like workplaces than camps) for aerospace workers, called "Sharashkas" - from the wikipedia article "Sharashka" - Sharashkas (singular: Russian: шара́шка, [ʂɐˈraʂkə]; sometimes sharaga, sharazhka) were secret research and development laboratories operating from 1930 to the 1950s within the Soviet Gulag labor camp system.
So, the famous Ukrainian rocket scientist Sergey Korolyov, worked at one of these "Sharashkas". He was saved rom the normal GULAG' camp system by Andrey Tupolev, (the designer of the Tu-95 Bear , Tu-22 Blinder, Tu-26 now 22M Backfire etc). Also rocket engine designer Glushko was saved by Tupolev et. al.. These "Sharashkas" was how the USSR beat American into space in 1957 with Sputnik and 1961 with Vostok (Yuri Gagarin)". Anyway the main point is the many German rocket scientists and V2 technicians who were held in these "Sharashkas" were not let go until mostly 1955 as far as I can determine. The best, well researched source for this (there's many others) is a book by author James Harford called - Korolev: How one man masterminded the Soviet drive to beat America to the moon
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I re-watched this viideo oj James discussing many interesting topics for the second time and it hasn't dated at asll, still worth watching again for sue He also mentioned the 1997 Moscow founding document with NATO in regards to the bogus "poor Russia victim of NATO" BS peddled by Mearsheimer et al. here is a summasry of the text, if I put a link the comment willl get zzpped. The document explicitly staees "NATO and Russia do not consider each other as adversaries;" so it makes you wonder, did Tsar Putin ever read this and note that very important point ? Yeltsin obviously was aware of it, seems his chosen successor was not....
Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation
1. The "Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation" was approved by the North Atlantic Council on 16 May 1997. It is the product of four months of intensive negotiations between Secretary General Solana and Russian Foreign Minister Primakov. The Secretary General, the Heads of State and Government of the North Atlantic Alliance and the President of the Russian Federation will sign the document in Paris on 27 May.
The NATO - Russia Founding Act reflects the changing security environment in Europe, an environment in which the confrontation of the Cold War has been replaced by the promise of closer cooperation among former adversaries. It reflects in particular the practice of consultation and cooperation established between the Alliance and Russia over the last few years, the most remarkable example being the participation of Russian troops alongside those of NATO and other partner countries in IFOR/SFOR.
NATO and Russia do not consider each other as adversaries; the Founding Act is the expression of an enduring commitment, undertaken at the highest political level, to build together a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic area.
2. The new security partnership between NATO and Russia will be one step among others which are being taken to build a stable, peaceful and undivided Europe. It will allow the Alliance and Russia to forge a closer relationship. This is in the interest, not only of NATO and Russia, but also of all states in the Euro-Atlantic area.
3.The Founding Act, as agreed with the Russian side, has four sections. It begins with a preamble which establishes the context for the stable and enduring partnership we want to build. It states the reasons why NATO and Russia believe that it is in their shared interest to cooperate more broadly and intensively.
It highlights the profound transformation that the Alliance has undergone since the end of the Cold War, through reductions of conventional and nuclear forces, through a revision of its strategic concept, through its new missions such as peacekeeping, and through its support for security cooperation throughout Europe, in particular within the framework of Partnership for Peace. It also refers to the transformation Russia is undergoing, its force reductions - which will continue -, the withdrawal of Russian forces from Central and Eastern Europe, the revision of Russia's military doctrine, and its participation in the multinational operation in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
4. Section I details the principles on which the NATO - Russia partnership will be based. These include commitments to norms of international behaviour as reflected in the UN Charter and OSCE documents, as well as more explicit commitments such as respecting states' sovereignty, independence and right to choose the means to ensure their security, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. Both sides commit themselves to strengthening the OSCE with the aim of creating a common space of security and stability in Europe.
5. Section II creates a new forum: the NATO - Russia Permanent Joint Council (PJC). This will be the venue for consultations, cooperation and - wherever possible - consensus building between the Alliance and Russia. The PJC will:
hold regular consultations on a broad range of political or security related matters;
based on these consultations, develop joint initiatives on which NATO and Russia would agree to speak or act in parallel;
once consensus has been reached, make joint decisions, if appropriate, and take joint action on a case-by-case basis.
Such joint actions may include peacekeeping operations under the authority of the UN Security Council or the responsibility of the OSCE.
6. Section III details a broad range of topics on which NATO and Russia can consult and perhaps cooperate, including preventing and settling conflicts, peacekeeping, preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and exchanging information on security and defence policies and forces. Conversion of defence industries, defence related environmental issues, and civil emergency preparedness are other areas for consultation and possible cooperation spelled out in this section.
7. Section IV covers military issues. In this section, the members of NATO reiterate their statement of 10 December 1996 that they have no intention, no plan and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new members, nor any need to change any aspects of NATO's nuclear posture or nuclear policy - and do not foresee any future need to do so.
NATO also reiterates its 14 March 1997 Statement indicating that in the current and foreseeable security environment, NATO plans to carry out its collective defence and other missions by ensuring the necessary interoperability, integration and capability for reinforcement rather than by additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces. Accordingly, the Alliance will have to rely on adequate infrastructure to allow for reinforcement if necessary.
8. NATO and Russia commit themselves in the same section to pursuing promptly the work relating to the adaptation of the treaty governing conventional forces in Europe (CFE), in order to further reduce the levels of Treaty Limited Equipment. This commitment will be pursued in the ongoing negotiations on CFE adaptation in Vienna and will help to achieve a result that reflects the changed security environment in Europe since the Treaty was adopted in 1990.
Finally, Section IV provides mechanisms to foster closer military-to-military cooperation between NATO and Russia, including by creating military liaison missions on both sides.
8Both sides have agreed that nothing in this document restricts or impedes the ability of either side to decide independently. It does not provide NATO or Russia at any stage with a right of veto over the actions of the other. The provisions of the NATO-Russia Founding Act can also not be used as a means to disadvantage the interests of other states.
9 The NATO-Russia Founding Act does not subordinate NATO to any other organisation, and it can in no way diminish the political or military effectiveness of the Alliance, including its ability to meet its security commitment to current and future members. NATO and Russia will work together on a broad spectrum of tasks in the Permanent Joint Council, which will, however, remain clearly separate from the North Atlantic Council - NATO's own decision-making body.
The Founding Act with Russia has been negotiated and will be concluded on its own merits; it is not meant as a compensation. It does not delay, limit or dilute NATO's opening for the accession of new members, and it will not relegate any new NATO member to second class status.
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@kevkeary4700 Many reasons, the UK was a founding member of NATO, FInland was not. During the Soviet period Finnish foreign policy had to be approved by Moscow, how is that political strength ? The UK has major influence via the British Commonwealth, its former Empire, in Australia, the USA, India, etc Does Finland have this political influence ? NO way it does. Don't kid yourself dude. FInland is a decent country, but who do you think listens in the white house to Finland ? Sorry to say, but NO one. But the Brits get a say and the ear of many people.
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As Mr. Sims stated "Russia is the opposite of freedom", I get the feeling VP Harris has got our backs here in Ukraine and of course there will be no more Sullivan/Charap et. al. "escalation management", let's see how her new national security team pans that out. Victory will probably have to come in stages, Sir James Sherr outlined a scenario like that today on Brian Whitmore's "Ppwer vertical" podcast. On ruzzia joining NATO back in the 90's, it seems like letting the fox into the metaphorical hen house, I get the impression, from his known modus operandi's so far, Putin would have just started to attack members from within and wrecked NATO totally. Mr. Sim's 💯, If you are going to set such a line, you need to enforce it. It reminds me of a skit Cheppelle did about Rick James (Coke's one helluva drug), who was a habitual line crosser, because he was doing too much coke, and Eddie and Charlie Murphy would have to keep him in check and literally thump him to get him to cut that crap out.. You gotta keep line crossers in check or you look weak!
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@buddyrojek9417 Look, this was going to happen maidan or no maidan, Putin revealed his malevolent imperial intent quite clearly - Ukraine is not a real country, Ukrainians don't exist as a nationality, they are "wayward russians", the Baltic's are historic russian lands too etc - not having The Maidan qould have only delayed it a few years, extrapolating your counter-factual, if Yanukovich was voted out and then a more Pro-European President initiated the EU accession, Putin would have tried to sabotage it again and failing that would have used force. In hindsight, given all Putin's imperial and anti-Western speeches before the re-invasion, these are clear indicators it was going to happen, whether or not the Maidan happened. The essay Putin wrote "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" was a dead giveaway of his intent. If you want to be fair dinkum, then this is how it would pan out.
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@cherienafo7676 Now there's a fair dinkum fluke, I moved to Ukraine from down under a decade ago. The Mrs is Ukrainian, but when I settled here it was in Donbas. The wife had a flat in Makiivka that she lost (it's now in the DNR), so I bought a flat in Pokrovsk to replace it, so Pokrovsk for me is my adopted Ukrainian home town, spent my entire time in Ukraine living there until we became IDP in west Ukraine (except for a few months in the DNR). I always hoped to go back one day, but, I think, that hope is now gone forever. I love Pokrovsk, it's a great Donetsk town, I will miss it dearly. It's getting strikes every day now and will end up like Mariupol, Bakhmut, Vuhledar or Vovchansk etc etc. 😥The 69th sniffing brigade is dong a lot of good work delivering vehicles here. Keep going to bat for us down under! Appreciate the kind words.
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When it comes to Ukraine's nukes, t's unfair to just single out President Clinton, it was George Bush senior who started that process and it was completed under the next administration. Interestingly Bush Senior's then SecDef Dick Cheney opposed removing the nukes from here. from the article - Deceit, Dread, and Disbelief: The Story of How Ukraine Lost Its Nuclear Arsenal - "In his memoirs and later interviews, Brent Scowcroft noted that then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney vigorously opposed the removal of nuclear weapons from the newly independent states at Russia’s periphery. Though most of their personal papers on the subject remain classified, a memo to the National Security Advisor from March 1992 demonstrated that these disputes did not disappear. National Security Council staffer David Gompert titled it “Why We Must be Adamant about De-nuclearizing Ukraine.” He noted three major counterarguments: Ukrainian nuclear weapons will not threaten the U.S. as Russian nuclear weapons do, for the simple reason that Ukraine, unlike Russia, is not a serious potential adversary. It might even prove advantageous to us to see Russian power checked—and Russian nuclear weapons deterred—by a Ukraine with a minimal deterrent. In any case, we hurt ourselves with the Ukrainians by insisting that they be stripped of nuclear weapons while we legitimize those of their powerful neighbor."
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Regarding that early 2003 period Georgie spoke of, and how you mentioned it gave an insight into Putin;'s true nature early on, in 2000 not long after he came in, 6 months or whatnot, Putin banned a puppet show called "Kukliy" (it literally just means "Puppets"). This really was an indicator of what was to manifest in worse and worse displays of Soviet authoritarianism and dictatorship typical of his KGB roots.I remember reading at the time that this show used to make Putin livid with rage, He hated it as it mocked him regularly. haha. From an article about the shows demise....
"High-ranking officials have grumbled about the puppet show for years, but former president Boris Yeltsin, a frequent target of the show himself, always refused to allow it to be persecuted.
In 1995, Russia's prosecutor-general launched a criminal investigation against Kukly for "insulting" the president. But most politicians rallied to support the program, and the prosecutor was fired in disgrace.
Today, however, the political environment is radically different. Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Putin has never been a defender of the media. He has accused some journalists of being "traitors." Russian media outlets are under intense pressure to support the Kremlin. Several outlets, including NTV, have been caught in a crackdown. NTV is the only independent television channel with a national audience. It is also the only channel that refuses to follow the Kremlin's official line on the war in Chechnya and other issues. Its parent company, Media-MOST, was the target of a raid on May 11 by heavily armed police commandos wearing masks. The channel described the raid as an attempt to intimidate it into obedience."
.....and thus ended Kukliy......
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@betterdonotanswer THat's really interesting and thanks for the heads up about the etymology's of the meanings of craot (I'd never actually looked into it yet) and and " Sěverъ" is pheoneticaly similar to the way you'd say serb msybe. that's make me wonder if the y were the ones that became the Serbians (older slavic used to call them "Servians" , I' ver seen that version , bu it may have been a corruption but it does inerestingly bring icloser to Sever)) Yea, haha Craots are a lot more like Ukrainians than the other Balkan groups, one thing for sure, they never wanted to be part of Jugoslaija or( Greater Serbia!), just as the Ukrainians never wanted to be part of "Greater Russia" or the USSR.. Also very more nationalistic with their culture a cut abo ve and beyond most other slavic groups, just like thd Ukrainains. THeir politics of modern times lines up, whereas pther slavic groups dabbleld in communism Craots & Uke's hated it from day one and saw it as an abomination and never wanted any part of it, even just a little! anyway yea Croatians dont do the "ye" for "e" sounds and dont say the "o "sound as an "uh" like RUsisans and to some extent Serbains too do, which makes the "o "sound more like "a"......cheers for the heads up again, or shiould I say Hvala Lepo!
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@dickderuiter5892 He gets it right most of the time, his wide sweeping predictions that he talked about months ago, have eventuated (iparaphrasing "by the end of september/october the Ukrainians will start to reverse the Russian gains on the battlefield & see some victories) - these battlefield specifics are more tricky to predict. yes, but they were supposedly well established in Kharkivska Oblast and they ran like dogs and left us a bunch of T-80's, 72's + ammunition and artillery! He is definitely on point more than disgraced & convicted quasi-pedo Scott Ritter, who is pretty mich now a Kremlin mouthpiece of the Ruzzian MoD, he has said some things that are barking mad nonsense (like the failed Kyiv operation was a "feint" to draw Ukraine army away from the real objectives, turns out he forgot that on ria-novosti they published an article too soon stating that Moscow had won and pulled it down! haha also what kind of feint involves losing thousands of men and equipment, Ruzzia lost half it tucks in that supposed "feint", the reason is it was a real attempt to take Kyiv, a real feint involves going in and out without losing men and equipemnt.
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@war-painter Yeap and actually now you mention these staged events, at the start of this re-invasion, there was a clip put out of supposedly two Ukrainian soldiers stopping a woman in a car with a small kid and abused her for speaking Russian, they fired their guns in the air and "scared" the crap out of her, the background scenery was identified as being in the DNR, and that helped to geolocate it, so there was no way it was UAF in that area, it was in fact some DNR militia staging that to make Ukraine look bad, as usual. Indeed its bad in teh USA, you have vatniks like Jimmy Dore peddling Kremlin BS, and Greyzone "news", it's "news" in the sense that it is the newest Kremlin propaganda, Blumenthal and Mate are vile anti-Ukrainianites, defending dictators like Putin and Assad. Ditto for Galloway in the UK.
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Yes, but the point is, all the innovation is from Europe or the USA. Russia and China only steal ideas and IP. Manufacturing can be returned to the USA and Europe. Apple's markups are off the scale, Why is it that you can buy 2 (or even 3) top of the line "windows" PC's or laptops for the price of one Mac or Macbook ? Apple have always been a rip off. Here in Ukraine a Macbook is like 100,000 UAH but a decent windows laptop is like 30 - 40,000 UAH!!! (my wife bought a really good ASuS laptop for 15,000 UAH new). Apple make nice stuff but is it worth the preposterous shake down ? The lithographic machines that make high end chips all come from one country too - The Netherlands. Do you consider that a hole we have dug for ourselves too ? ( I don't, the Dutch are decent members of the world community). Lastly, trust me, if the price of iPhones goes up to $5,000, the Apple fan boys will still pay it!!! 🤣
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V L A D I S L A V,!!!!! Everyone's favourite ex-Soviet refusenik!! Always very good vslue. OCHEN HOROSHO!!! Ok seriously, with the reasoning taking into context the absurd time frame of having it all over with in a 3 days or week as you mentioned - hat's it more or less, as in the end all the other reasons preferred whether, religious, historical, political relating to maidan or the CIA, and esp the the clownish "poor Russia victim of NATO" grifters, become superfluous, Tsar Putin did this because he though he could get away with it, previous experience demonstrated he could, what was Merkel in Germany or Macron in France going to do ? "engage" (i.e appease) more ? More sanctions, that seemed to be no deference ? I heard someone say recently he did it for thgat aforementioned reason, might have been you John and my reaction was to say out loud and clap my hand "BINGO"! thast's the one when you distill it all down.
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When you asked Mr Kutelia why did the ruZZian's stop and not go all the way to Tblisi, I knew abut their crap logistics which played a part, but there had to be more to it and, even with crap logistics the ruZZian's keep going. It was when Mr Kutelia pointed out that the Bush Administration sent some logistics for the Georgians and made a "significant" intervention that sent a message, that things became clear to me. Fast forward to 2014 and then we have "do nothing" Obama and "do nothing" Cameron in charge in the USA and the UK. Now this brings to mind VP Cheney, who back in the 90's. vehemently opposed the removal of nuclear weapons from Ukraine,, but he was over ridden by Bush Senior (Clinton went on to finalise that folly, but credit to him, after the 2022 re-invasion, he was so shocked, he apologised publicly for making a huge mistake). From the article - Deceit, Dread, and Disbelief: The Story of How Ukraine Lost Its Nuclear Arsenal - "In his memoirs and later interviews, Brent Scowcroft noted that then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney vigorously opposed the removal of nuclear weapons from the newly independent states at Russia’s periphery. Though most of their personal papers on the subject remain classified, a memo to the National Security Advisor from March 1992 demonstrated that these disputes did not disappear. National Security Council staffer David Gompert titled it “Why We Must be Adamant about De-nuclearizing Ukraine.” He noted three major counterarguments: Ukrainian nuclear weapons will not threaten the U.S. as Russian nuclear weapons do, for the simple reason that Ukraine, unlike Russia, is not a serious potential adversary. It might even prove advantageous to us to see Russian power checked—and Russian nuclear weapons deterred—by a Ukraine with a minimal deterrent. In any case, we hurt ourselves with the Ukrainians by insisting that they be stripped of nuclear weapons while we legitimize those of their powerful neighbor."
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@timthetiny7538 We've got nuclear reactors here and nothing has been "sold" on the "black market" all these decades. It had nothing to do with the "black market", that's what clueless journalists and fools like you thought. It was about abiding by the START treaty - As the Soviet Union began to collapse, the George H.W. Bush Administration sought to preserve the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which promised to decrease the world’s strategic nuclear weapons stockpiles by 80 percent. After nearly a decade of negotiations, it was signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1991. But with the USSR about to shatter into five sovereign countries, how would this two-party deal endure?
Later that month, America’s first ambassador to the Russian Federation, Robert Strauss, wrote to Washington about the hysteria caused by reports of Yeltsin considering a nuclear strike on Ukraine. The situation was “made worse,” the emissary wrote, by the new president “acknowledging he had discussed the possibility with military experts.”
In his memoirs and later interviews, Brent Scowcroft noted that then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney vigorously opposed the removal of nuclear weapons from the newly independent states at Russia’s periphery. Though most of their personal papers on the subject remain classified, a memo to the National Security Advisor from March 1992 demonstrated that these disputes did not disappear. National Security Council staffer David Gompert titled it “Why We Must be Adamant about De-nuclearizing Ukraine.” He noted three major counterarguments: Ukrainian nuclear weapons will not threaten the U.S. as Russian nuclear weapons do, for the simple reason that Ukraine, unlike Russia, is not a serious potential adversary. It might even prove advantageous to us to see Russian power checked—and Russian nuclear weapons deterred—by a Ukraine with a minimal deterrent. In any case, we hurt ourselves with the Ukrainians by insisting that they be stripped of nuclear weapons while we legitimize those of their powerful neighbor. Gompert dismissed these objections, and the Bush administration continued on its path. The document, however, bears witness to the persistent debate that unfolded within the administration. - no mention whatsoever of your "black market" nonsense.
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On Mr Horsfall's opint about BOJO, I agree 100%, - it's why he has pubs here named after him - the scandals and malarkey back in the UK rally were not relevant here, he was out on the front foot, at least a month before the Americans got on board with their Javelins, organising MANPADS from wherever he could source them with allies in Europe. - interestingly, we already had Stingers here, that got shipped, ironically, on Trumps watch - contrast with Obama who refused any "lethal aid" when we asked in 2014, he screwed us bad. Robin mentioned that and it's totally on the money - I would go so far as to say President Obama is guilty of criminal neglect. Why, people may ask ? He was just as responsible for making the Budapest memorandum "toilet paper" as much as Tsar Putin did.
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FUN FACT - the usual nickname for Aleksander is "Sasha", but this is not enough for cult of personality of the man who has been in power longer than Stalin. He calls himself "Batska" i.e. "father"!! ...from Wikitionary....
ба́тька • (bátʹka) m anim (genitive ба́тьки, nominative plural ба́тьки, genitive plural ба́тек)
(colloquial) father, dad
(colloquial) "father", boss, master, lord, kingpin, number one, pro
(colloquial) a nickname for president of Belarus Alyaksandr Lukashenka, also the Belarusian term ба́цька (bácʹka) is used in this sense.
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I think Tsar Putin definitely decided to invade after he couldn't get the DNR & LNR into some kind of Federated Ukraine as Trojan horse wreckers via the bogus Minsk Agreements. Putin has said publicly he decided to enact the plan to retake Crimea after Euromaidan, but his decision to eventually take Crimea goes all the way back to 1999 when NATO bombed Serbia and helped Kosovo's independence. I remember seeing an interview years ago (I can't find it, it's buried by recent events) were he got angry with a bunch of journalists asking him if US meddling in Syria to topple Assad was the reason he decided to take Crimea and he got really annoyed with them and told them all to shut up and then said something like "none of you have any idea, it was not Syria it was Yugoslavia, it was what NATO did to Yugoslavia, that's when I decided Crimea would have to be taken in the future".(something like that, was a long time ago) He also mentioned it to Sholz when he visited Moscow in Feb 2022 just before the invasion.
from "EXPLAINER: Putin’s Balkan narrative argument for Ukraine war" by The Associated Press
"“But all of us were witnesses to the war in Europe that NATO unleashed against Yugoslavia,” Putin said. He recalled that it was a major military operation involving bombing strikes against a European capital, Belgrade. “It did happen. Without any sanctions by the U.N. Security Council. It is a very sad example, but it is a hard fact,” Putin said. He has argued that by intervening in Kosovo, the West created a precedent with longstanding consequences."
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9At the 6:50 mark, Mr Garner says, "...so when Putin came in, those same (Yeltsin) spin doctors were literally battering down the doors of the media and applying all osrts of pressure..." - The first thing they did was cancel a political satire show that used puppets to mock politicians called "Kukliy" i.e. puppets (also used as a word for dolls too) but the show was called Puppets. The word is here in Ukraine that Putin used to blow his stack every time he saw that show -they did mock him a lot on it - he hated it, plus they got a lot of mileage out of Yeltsin, but Yeltsin was not bothered by it, he was so drunk mostly, he probably laughed along with it! 🤡 Summing up, this was the first ominous sign, preceding the "Ryazan sugar" incident, that showed the true character of Putin, but the western political establishment ignored it all, Merkel being the most prominent example here in Europe - she signed the Nord Stream II contracts with Putin not long after he took Crimea and Girkin started the war in Donbas. 💩
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At the 47:35 min mark, Anastasia - "...here in America there is this concept of community.....I can not bring myself to find the analogous word in ruzzian..." - indeed, neither can I, but in Ukrainian the word is "Hromada"! From Encyclopaedia Britannica - Topic - Hromada - Political movements in Ukraine; "…19th century, clandestine societies called hromadas (“communities”) were formed in various cities to promote Ukrainian culture, education, and publishing under conditions of illegality. Originally associated with the Kyiv hromada was the leading political thinker of the time, Mykhaylo Drahomanov, who advocated the transformation of the tsarist empire into a federative republic in which Ukrainian national rights would be assured. Toward the end of the century, younger, primarily student-led hromadas became involved in more overtly political activities. One such group in Kharkiv developed into the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party, which in a pamphlet published in 1900 advanced for the first time as a political goal “one, single, indivisible, free, independent Ukraine.”
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