Comments by "Black Cat Dungeon Master\x27s Familiar" (@blackcatdungeonmastersfami5311) on "Willy OAM" channel.

  1.  @mrdumbfellow927  I think he means bombing ethnic Russians - which is true. No, Ukraine was definitely not bombing Russia itself.
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  2. And people still claim it's a defensive alliance.
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  3. LOL, Sweden faces invasion but it's not from an enemy army and it's assisted by the Swedish government.
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  4. How can you seriously believe it's 50/50 who is winning? Ukrainian casualties are much higher and it's a much smaller, weaker country. Ukraine is struggling to replace manpower, Russia is not. Ukraine is burning its reserves, Russia is building up reserves. It's blindingly obvious who is winning.
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  5. Why would Russia risk stopping at the four oblasts when there's the likelihood that anything they don't take now becomes an enemy again later? Why would they want to risk enemy nuclear weapons being stationed closer to Moscow than they can avoid? Now the Ukrainian army is starting to break and Russia can make further gains at acceptable cost, it seems likely to me Russia will want everything east of the Dniepr, even just for their own future security.
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  6.  @colincampbell4261  Nah look at the outrageous bombing of Serbia. Britain was cheer leading. Norway was cheer leading. The USA is just the biggest, it's not always the most aggressive.
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  7.  @DzIVDzAN  The one you got wrong there is Nordstream. The Ukrainians, specifically Zaluzhny got scapegoated by the people who really blew it up - and they can't complain about their main donor. Seymour Hersh described it nicely.
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  8. It still does. He still thinks this war is going to fizzle out in a stalemate. Whereas every day Russia gets stronger, Ukraine gets weaker. The First World War didn't end in a stalemate, although both sides got exhausted one side cracked first. Likewise, this war.
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  9.  @Feffro  Britain recently sprinted past both of them in the worst government competition.
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  10. Western support for Ukraine is dropping off - even if the USA picks it up again it's still down on what it was especially in artillery ammo the most important category. And Ukraine has used up willing recruits. I seriously doubt Ukraine can last another year.
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  11. They do it to push through stuff which wouldn't stand up on its own merits.
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  12. Yeah I believe Russia took higher casualties in the first month of the war because Ukraine ambushed their supply lines. Since then Ukrainian casualties have been higher overall for sure, in the past two months, much higher. Probably several times higher. We've all seen videos of these failed attacks where dozens of vehicles have been destroyed and defenceless infantry platoons get shelled in the open.
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  13.  @giovanni-ed7zq  You're selectively quoting Prigozhin to pick out the bits of what he said which suit your narrative. Also why would you trust anything Prigozhin said at all? It;s obvious he had his own agenda, undermining Gerasimov and Shoigu.
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  14. Paul from Combat Veteran Reacts is a clown who cherry picks facts to create a fantasy narrative..
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  15.  @Chaezaa  NATO/the US ignores the UN when it suits. For example there's no UN mandate for US troops in Syria where the Syrian gov. doesn't want them. The UN says Israel should leave the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights (stolen from Syria) but NATO supports Israel. The UN doesnt' recognise Kosovo as a separate country from Syria but the US does and some other NATO countries. This is the US "rules based order"
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  16. Oryx has been shown to classify Ukrainian losses as Russian, inflate Russian losses, count duplicates as multiple losses and ignore Ukrainian losses. When challenged about this, one of the Oryx founders said we just don't have enough time to improve quality. Which is maybe true but the bias does seem to be all in one direction. Realistically, if Oryx were accurate, Russia would no longer be able to make the armoured gains it makes now every day.
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  17.  @strawdemindset  You're basically saying these people could have left their homeland and moved somewhere else. Why should they? They've been there for two hundred years. They had their country, they had a president they elected, they didn't ask for a foreign sponsored coup by radical nationalists kicking out the democratically elected president and imposing their own agenda, passing laws against their own language, occupying cities like Donetsk and Mariupol like an invading army. Look up the footage from 2014 of the Ukrainian army entering Mariupol in APCs
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  18.  @Scythical  That's just because YouTube pushes what you watch. I watch Military Summary, Weeb Union, History Legends, DPA and yes, YouTube recommends that kind of stuff to me but at a certain point, I stopped watching stuff like Peter Zeihan, Ryan McBeth, Telegraph, Times Radio, Combat Veteran Reacts and some of the ridiculous Ukrainian guys like Starsky (if I got his name right) because they were so obviously useless propaganda. But even though I unsubscribed and even downvoted particular videos, YouTube still recommends them to me from time to time. It's obvious YouTube gives an advantage to pro-Ukraine voices. If you're not familiar already, have a look at Matt Taibbi's work on exposing the influence of the US government in Twitter - before Musk took over.
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  19.  @OWnIshiiTrolling  As soon as someone calls Russians orcs it's an immediate sign he's full of shit :)
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  20.  @elKarlo  Even worse, if they'd honoured Minsk II in the first place and stopped that crazy talk about acquiring nuclear weapons and joining NATO, this war would never have happened at all. Zelensky was elected on a platform of reconciliation with Russia but the nationalist extremists threatened him and he backed down.
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  21. This entire interview is this Georgian guy boasting and slagging off the Russians. You have to take that into account.
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  22. Ukraine has lots of main problems!
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  23.  @tombombadil8709  European economic health is not great as you say but even worse is European democratic health. Political leaders have never been as unpopular in the entire post WWII period as now.
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  24.  @NickyDekker89  I disagree it's not about the land. This particular land is relatively close to Moscow and other important Russian cities so it's dangerous for Russia to leave it under control of a country radically hostile to Russia. It's potentially very valuable economically. And it's populated by people who speak Russian. So the land is important, it's worth fighting a longer war for. Of course it's also about preventing Ukraine from joining NATO. I don't think Russia is going to accept any kind of peace where Ukraine joins NATO at all unless all that's left of Ukraine is the north west. I think we're going to see a major move on Kharkov before this war is over. And cities like Kharkov, Sumy and certainly Slavyansk could quite well return to Russia.
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  25. Nobody would sign a deal to ban drones. You can ban gas because it's not that useful militarily - in WWI only about 1% of the fatalities were from gas. But you can't ban something which is militarily essential. Or if you do ban it, the ban will be ignored. Both sides are using flamethrowers in Ukraine and thermobaric explosives aren't too different from flamethrowers anyway.
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  26. AP is now saying 200k.
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  27. Putin never said anything about invading NATO land, it's NATO which has been pushing eastward. What Putin did say many times over and over was that NATO joining Ukraine was a red line. If he hadn't been ignored this war need never have happened.
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  28.  @theaviator06  Canada is way, way colder than this part of Ukraine.
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  29. The only exception is deep under the Carparthians. Could be they'll build huge caves there like the Iranians built underground weapons factories safe from US conventional weapons. Wouldn't be cheap though and hard to see how Ukrainian resources are going to stretch to that given all their other difficulties.
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  30. This war didn't start on October 7 and the vast majority of the people who are dying are not Hamas.
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  31. China's manufacturing output exceeds the USA's and Europe's put together. At the end of the Second World War, the USA had half of the world's manufacturing output just on its own but those days are long gone. As for depleted uranium - it definitely causes huge health problems. Look into Fallujah where birth defects and still births went through the roof. Also much higher in Serbia after NATO used DU there. The main problem is the chemical toxicity, not the radioactivity.
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  32. ​ @dementesf  You might be giving these clowns more credit than they deserve. Boris Johnson, Joe Biden, Ursula Van Der Leyen, Zelensky himself, these are not serious people.
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  33.  @scubaspears  Yes there is definitely in breeding in Iraq but you can compare the rate of still births before and after and the rate of birth defects. Also compare Falluja with Iraq overall. There is also evidence from Serbia where NATO used D.U and inbreeding is not a factor. So yes there is hard statistical evidence.
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  34. AFTER the Ardennes offensive turned out as unsuccessful as the Ukrainian 2023 summer offensive.
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  35. This has happened over and over in history, if you're Greek, surely you've read the Melian Dialogue?
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  36.  @Leiska86  I don't question Europe's willingness to support Ukraine, I question its ability. Actual money is insufficient and there just isn't the industrial capacity for stuff like artillery ammunition and SAMs. As for Russia, even if support drops, it has a long long way to go before there's a serious problem replacing losses. Look at Mediazona tracking Russian deaths, Russian losses aren't actually that high compared to say the Bakhmut battle. Russian men were reluctant to go to Ukraine when there was a shortage of men and it was highly dangerous to be a Russian soldier covering an undermanned line. The situation now is completely different. Yes the Storm Z guys have a short life expectancy but the typical soldiers have a very good chance of coming back in one piece with a bulging bank account.
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  37. Disagree, Russia will require a lot of territory and constitutional changes in Ukraine but will not require an unconditional surrender because Russia needs to contain the war, avoid panicking NATO countries and going all the way to Lvov would be very difficult for Russia even though they're winning the war decisively. Few wars end in unconditional surrender like the Second World War, most end in negotiations and this one will too.
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  38.  @giovanni-ed7zq  Eighty years ago, a large Western country went down the road of dehumanising and underestimating the Russians. They called them Untermenschen rather than orcs but the meaning is similar. It didn't end well for that large Western country. If you're Italian as your name suggests, you should have learned a few lessons from that war too.
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  39. The Ukraine that eventually joins NATO might be a lot smaller than the Ukraine of 2024 :) Seriously, if Russia goes as far as Odessa, it probably doesn't care anymore if Galicia joins NATO.
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  40.  @Ungood-jl5ep  facts are facts and I've shown you why you're wrong. No mental gymnastics necessary. Also check out medical studies on places where DU has been used particularly Falluja. It's pretty awful. Still births and birth defects through the roof.
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  41.  @Ungood-jl5ep  LOL I provided some facts which show some of what you said is indisputably wrong and you don't know what you're talking about. For example you said "It is radioactive, but only beta emissions." You're wrong. Cope harder.
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  42. LOL yeah nobody knows, Willy should really be calling this out.
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  43. That goes for both sides. Before the war Ukraine was owned by oligarchs and the ordinary people had nothing. After the war Ukraine will be split between Blackrock and Russia and the ordinary people will be even poorer than before the war started.
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  44.  @teddypicker6969  That's a pretty dumb take, a victory in a war of attrition is when one side loses the will or the ability to continue, not when a particular town is taken. It doesn't matter that Bakhmut is pretty far down the league in size, what matters is the resources expended to attack and defend it.
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  45. And another billion dollars thanks
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  46.  @schepvogelk5971  Yes Russia is losing a lot of men but the only hard evidence we have as to numbers (Mediazona) shows that Russian fatalities are much lower now compared to earlier in the war while their gains in territory are much higher. Given the Russian government has already paid a high price so far, it doesn't seem plausible they will refuse to pay a much lower price to continue now they're making gains. It's like suggesting the Allies should have made peace with Germany in January 1945 to save casualties. No, if the only consideration was saving casualties they would have done it in 1941.
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  47.  @olepettergansmo3307  when do you think he said that? If you believe that either you heard it second hand or it's a mistranslation
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  48.  @rezcon  The main problem is alpha radiation which is a huge problem if ingested - as it will be if farmland is sprayed with uranium particles. And it won't just disappear after a few years. Radiation is not the only problem, the chemical toxicity is (apparently) a greater health risk than the radiation. There are hundreds of academic papers published on this, there's not really a debate to be had about whether it's dangerous. Saying it's not dangerous is as incorrect as saying smoking is not dangerous.
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  49. ​ @Leiska86  Europe is in severe economic trouble. If Europe had a dictator like that, Europe would have a revolution. It's already having minor revolutions as it is. Money isn't everything. Saudi Arabia has plenty of money but it still has a well funded military which most neutral commentators regard with derision. Furthermore, nominal exchange rates are highly misleading. The US economy for example still has a strong dollar but seems to be heading for a financial collapse given its huge deficit spending.
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  50. Ukraine doesn't need to stop but if it wants to survive, it needs to negotiate. Every day, Ukraine gets weaker and loses more men. It's not about what's fair it's about common sense. Every day the war continues is a bad day for Ukraine.
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  51.  @MarvinWestmaas  The Human wave narrative is not borne out by actual footage. Neither side has used 1914 style "human waves". The importance of Bakhmut does not depend on its prewar population. Gettysburg was a village. Verdun was a village. El Alamein was little more than a railway station. Also, these Westerners who call Russians orcs - grow up! The vast majority wouldn't know the difference between a Russian and a Ukrainian anyway.
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  52. What's funny about that is most of the English speakers talking like that wouldn't know the difference between a Russian guy and a Ukrainian guy if they met one of each.
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  53. Nobody loves the sound of his own voice more than Mercouris. He says nothing important on his own podcast that isn't covered by the Duran together :)
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  54.  @coffeebreakchat2450  Kursk doesn't seem to be the highest priority for Russia, fighting there is advantageous tactically for Russia and the fighting has drawn in a lot of the best Ukrainian units. I'm sure the Russians would like to snuff out the salient but the gains they're making in the south east are more important.
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  55.  @rosshilton  I think the steel from old rounds should be fine if they've been stored properly probably doesn't matter if they're fifty years old but the explosives will have been replaced.
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  56. What should the correct Russia-Ukraine border be? The 1990s border was drawn up by Soviet bureaucrats. Millions of ethnic Russians were caught on the Ukrainian side.
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  57.  @jesussaves_316  At this point in the war the VDV are probably way better than at the start. They've got all the funding they need, they have way more experience and they've pulled in patriotic volunteers who wouldn't have wanted an army career in peace time.
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  58.  @Silent824  The Russian army is successfully fighting a war against a major country armed by the whole of NATO. It's no mean achievement.
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  59. How would you know it's there when you're flying 600km/hr?
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  60.  @bik3r230  What kind of nuclear energy worker are you? A security guard? You're certainly not a physicist are you! A solid lump of DU creates a lot of alpha radiation but that radiation doesn't get inside the human body. Once it's vaporised and spread all over Europe's primary wheat producing region, then yes it does become a huge problem. And the chemical toxicity is potentially an even bigger problem than the radiation.
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  61. They must have been tempted but the patient strategy of running Ukraine out of morale and manpower seems safer.
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  62. And in a guerrilla war, how does this matter?
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  63.  @grahamhireme9283  Great footage but that BBC series was full of errors, some of them were excusable back then but some were blatantly wrong even then.
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  64. They don't have the manpower less for another offensive.
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  65. They're now included with the Russian army. They're formally part of the Russian army now.
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  66.  @arjan2777  Russia can hit anywhere on the surface of Ukraine. The only place safe from Russian missile strikes would be deep under the Carpathian mountains. Ukraine doesn't have the economic resources remaining to build a large armaments industry underground.
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  67.  @Max_Da_G  Shadow banning is really bad on this platform
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  68. You could say exactly the same thing about Russians and Ukrainians. Lots of intermarriage, conflict between them can only benefit a third party.
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  69. Ukraine is advancing backwards. New shipments of weapons isn't going to change that. Ukraine is already short of willing trained manpower.
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  70. Yes, it's well documented, it's a huge problem that is not going to disappear in just a few decades.
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  71. These Russian guys aren't generally communist, it's a bit like Ukrainians painting the Balkenkreuz on their tanks. There's some continuation from previous conflicts but there are differences too.
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  72.  @Leiska86  What do you mean by economic output? Looking at money is misleading. Russia's industrial output is huge if you look at the stuff that counts in this kind of war - heavy industry. Yes theoretically if Europe were controlled by a dictator who was willing to cut social spending and build up heavy industry and military production then yes European munitions production could expand but that's not going to happen. Only a few countries like Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania will be willing to make the sacrifice. In Slovakia and Netherlands the Russophobe politicians have already lost elections. Next elections the current German government will fall too and maybe the same in France.
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  73.  @Leiska86  The smartest thing Finland could do would be to have a good relationship with Russia. Every time Finland fights a war with Russia, Finland gets smaller. Joining NATO means Finland will now have a much larger Russia force on its border and will require higher military spending indefinitely. Also it loses cheap Russian gas. I see no advantage whatsoever.
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  74. I heard that rumour but it doesn't seem likely. More likely is Lloyd Austin is scared for his job and didn't want to show any weakness by telling anyone he's going for an operation. He probably expected to be out in a couple of hours but the operation went wrong and he was stuck in there for days with no means to communicate with his staff, possibly because his chief of staff had flu. Or possibly because he was too sick to even try to contact anyone. Anyway we'll probably never know the truth.
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  75. Both sides have a problem with this. I've seen Russian barrels split. Hard to know whether the crew survive when that happens.
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  76.  @miriamweller812  Totally. Surely obvious to Putin too which is probably why Putin says he has no objection to Ukraine joining the EU.
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  77. I believe Ukrainian casualties run into the hundreds of thousands but not a million. Very many Ukrainians have just left. Many left even before the war because it was too hard to earn a living in Ukraine. Males are typically much more mobile in any society.
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  78. Just because they say it doesn't mean it's true. Probably Ukrainian casualties are higher but probably not much higher. The Ukrainians have had some advantages at certain points especially mainly being on the defensive.
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  79. "when Ukraine pushes back through" Bakhmut? Is that before or after Ukraine reaches the Azov sea? Which is going to be any day now right?
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  80.  @limedickandrew6016  I don't get the point about how shallow the sea is. Wreckage either sinks or floats. if it floats, you can see it with a satellite doesn't matter how deep the sea is. If it sinks even 7m deep you can't see it with a satellite.
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  81.  @limedickandrew6016  No, I'm not claiming there won't be floating wreckage, I'm just questioning why you think the depth of the sea matters. Satellites won't see sunk wreckage 7m underwater any more easily than they would 7000m underwater.
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  82.  @rebelmango2141  Saddam Hussein is not someone I ever want to make excuses for but the invasion was never sold using humanitarian reasons. It was sold as destroying the WMD which the US and UK governments knew had already been destroyed. The invasion was justified by a lie. All of these wars are motivated by geopolitical advantage usually for the USA, sometimes for Israel. What Russia is doing in Ukraine is no different.
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  83. It's not a stalemate. Whereas every day Russia gets stronger, Ukraine gets weaker. The First World War didn't end in a stalemate, although both sides got exhausted one side cracked first. Likewise, this war.
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  84. @@AquaFyrre Interesting comment, can you please explain how you know that?
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  85.  @ericp1139  Apparently a bare bones T72 is half a million! And the Amata is around 5 million. Russian tanks might not be better than Western tanks but they're certainly cheaper.
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  86.  @RomanVarl  People have been predicting the tank is about to become obsolete for over a hundred years now :P The only place on the battlefield more dangerous than in a tank is outside of a tank.
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  87.  @redscope897  wikipedia says half a million for a brand new T72 in 2011 but no doubt you know better.
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  88.  @andreasfjellborg1810  Yeah fair enough it's a base price. Still a lot cheaper than $30 million!
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  89.  @Ungood-jl5ep  You obviously don't understand this stuff at all. The half life is around six times longer than U235, nobody suggests that's negligible so why would you claim a sixth of that is practically on existent? That makes no sense whatsover. When U238 decays it decays with an alpha particle. So it's wrong to suggest it's "mainly a beta emitter". It emits both particles at the same time. The alpha one is approx two thousand times more dangerous so that's the one we care about. As for vaporising, the density is irrelevant. It vaporises around 4000K and you get way hotter than that in the stream of a shape charged anti-tank round. Dude, stick to what you know and it ain;t nuclear physics.
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  90.  @Ungood-jl5ep  Does it hurt to be humiliated by a lady? Or has it been happening your whole life so you're used to it?
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  91.  @flyingnorseman  It's better than the alternative!
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  92.  @bradmodd7856  How can anyone still believe Ukraine is going to retake Zaporizhye and Kherson? Look at the progress towards this over the past two months and the casualties.
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  93.  @iannothling2791  I think you mean the Kherson offensive. I don't think the Kharkov offensive can really be spun positively for the Russians even if Ukrainian casualties were heavy as well.
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  94. Yes! Reminds me a bit of how Dr John Campbell evolved in his excellent channel on the virus and the cover ups and the vaccines.
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  95. It was Canadians who had a stand off with the Red Army there. It probably wouldn't have mattered, the Soviets withdrew from Austria after the war as agreed before the surrender.
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  96.  @e-machine-ol1987  That seems to be the Halder version of what happens. The TIK channel analyses the whole Stalingrad battle over maybe fifty hours of video. Blaming AH doesn't seem to stand up.
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  97.  @quantumfairing2216  People keep forgetting, Finland lost both the Winter War and the Continuation War. Once the Soviet army got organised, the Finns could do nothing to stop it.
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  98.  @quantumfairing2216  The reason the Soviet Union didn't crush Finland was political, not military. In both wars, the Soviets had penetrated the main Finnish defensive line defending Helsinki. In the Winter War, the Soviet objective was building a buffer zone to defend Leningrad, not taking over Finland. Dedicating excessive resources to Finland would have been rash given the danger from Germany, Japan and other priorities like gaining territory in the Balkans. It would also have massively antagonised Germany whom the Soviets rightly feared. Yes, for sure, there was incompetence, Stalin's purge of the generals is probably the main reason but nowadays, it's usual to exaggerate it as you seem to be doing. Don't forget the Soviet Army crushed the Japanese in a pretty big battle around this time. As for the Continuation War, obviously the main priority for the Soviet Army was defeating Germany, Finland was a sideshow. Peace with Finland freed up Soviet forces for the advance to Berlin. But the Finnish defeat was even more decisive. Finland nowadays likes to remember tactical successes in these wars, it's a nationalist narrative a lot like Ukraine boasting about tactical successes from the first month of the 2022 war. The reality is that tactical successes don't prevent disaster.
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  99.  @quantumfairing2216  I never said the Red Army reached Helsinki, do you struggle with comprehension? The Molotov Ribbentrop Pact brought Finland into the Soviet sphere of influence. The Germans certainly didn't agree with the Soviet Union taking Finland over completely. Hitler said so explicitly. Yes, I said fighting with Japan was "around that time" - two months before. As for what you said about building a buffer zone around Leningrad - if you contradict that then you obviously don't have a clue about what the Soviet Union was trying to achieve. Look into the Soviet territorial demands/offer which led to the war. Am I correct that English isn't your native language?
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  100. Yeah he's a pretty nice guy but he's not that bright.
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  101.  @Bluest_of_Blue_Waffles  I don't think so they all attempt to be neutral. Acknowledging Ukraine is losing this war is obvious even to pro-NATO people with a brain like Dan Davis. Admittedly Dima from Military Summary has a lot of eccentric speculations but they're pro Ukraine as often as pro-Russia. And he does a good job of distinguishing between fact and speculation. Guys like DPA and History LEgends have no skin in the game they're just calling out NAFO delusions. They both call out pro-Russia BS too.
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  102. It started before Hamas even existed
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  103.  @ohmightyzeus6135  There are studies from Iraq and Serbia, especially Falluja where birth defects and still births shot up after the war.
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  104. I doubt they'll help much, the Russians will shoot at them before they even get close to the front lines. They might be useful for launching missiles themselves but they won't affect Russian air superiority.
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  105. So his reason for fighting is racism :)
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  106.  @Sukhothai77  I don't have a link but I've seen in on Twitter and Dima from Military Summary channel showed it. This guy lost his shit, told someone to give him a grenade and threw it in the bunker where his men had just been arguing with him.
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  107.  @Papaghost8902  I agree with your overall assessment but 10 to 1 casualties isn't plausible. It's certainly one sided but we've seen plenty of footage of Ukrainian successes.
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  108.  @teddypicker6969  How can you believe Ukraine is getting stronger and Russia is getting weaker? The Russian economy is actually growing despite the war. Russia has only had one round of mobilisation. If Russia had any doubts at all about where this war is going don't you think they'd mobilise another half million, million, two million men?
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  109. LOL since when? He mainly repeats the MSM.
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  110.  @Fankas2000  I think he's Latvian - based on things he said.
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  111. ... "to the last Ukrainian"
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  112. It's a lot like Saigon in 1970
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  113.  @teddypicker6969  When did Russia commit to major offensives? Last I heard Surovikhin explicitly said they're NOT going to do major offensives, they're going to use their artillery to destroy the Ukrainian army.
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  114. Yeah it's huge. Even with drones. Even a 6m elevation advantage helps a lot for visibility.
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  115. Why stop at Crimea, why not just advance all the way to Moscow and simultaneously, launch a naval assault on Vladivostok?
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  116. If Ukraine joins NATO when the war is over, Russia has a strong incentive to keep the war going and ensure they control the important parts of Ukraine when the war finally is over.
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  117. A month into the war Russia decided it would be a long war of attrition so pulled back from anywhere where their supply lines were in danger including Kiev. Putting valuable aircraft and pilots in danger over Bakhmut just wasn't worth any advantage, they achieved the same result with artillery and expendable criminals. It's a mistake to think because Russia doesn't capture ground quickly means there isn't an overwhelming disparity of resources.
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  118.  @mikemckinnis3877  I'd guess there was a slight chance at the start of the war that Putin's government would collapse. But it was always a long shot.
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  119. C is the best estimate but we could easily see surprises like Prigozhin's coup. We do know Zelensky has some serious enemies now including Poroshenko, Timoshenko and Zaluzhny.
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  120.  @adam90670  Using cluster munitions against enemy soldiers is not a war crime. Using cluster munitions against central Donetsk City most certainly is.
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  121. She says "we're not targeting civilians". Anyone who believes that should look at the footage from Gaza - already over 6000 bombs used several days ago, at that rate, over 10,000 by the time I'm writing this.
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  122.  @Sapnfap  It's irrelevant whether the majority of bombs kill civilians. In any war, only a tiny minority of ammunition used kills anyone. The point is you can't use thousands of bombs on a city with its population in place and then claim you aren't targeting civilians.
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  123.  @carlosandleon  Lead and DU are not comparable in toxicity. DU used as anti-tank ammunition gets vaporised; in addition to its radioactivity which lasts practically forever, it's chemically far more toxic than lead. Google Falluja birth defects.
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  124.  @SFHFWill  You're wrong about depleted uranium, the radioactivity is dangerous when vaporised because it's an alpha emitter which gets inside your intestines when you eat food grown on polluted farmland. Also, it's chemically highly toxic. There are hundreds of studies published on this. Please look into them. Yes it is slightly safer than enriched uranium. That doesn't mean it's safe.
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  125. We can see the bigger picture. Anyone with an open and sceptical mind can see it's not going well.
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  126. I'm 99.9% sure the Americans did it but I wouldn't have put it past Ukraine if they could have pulled it off. Consider lots of the other things they've done - assassination of civilians in Russia, showering Donetsk city centre with butterfly mines, a kill list including all kinds of Westerners, shelling Energodar power station ...
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  127. The Americans in Syria are starting to look very exposed.
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  128.  @dreambadger  It is proved beyond doubt that depleted uranium is an ongoing health hazard to the population of any area where it's used in war for generations after the war is over.
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  129.  @rezcon  Firstly, don't even bother paying attention to what the WHO says after all the lies it told us over Wuhan, the origins of the virus and China's handling of it. Check out the studies from Serbia and Falluja. It's irrefutable this is some nasty stuff
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  130.  @rebelmango2141  Glad you find cancer funny - check these two studies Jia G, Belli M, Sansone U, Rosamilia S, Gaudino S. Concentration and characteristics of depleted uranium in water, air and biological samples collected in Serbia and Montenegro. Appl Radiat Isot. 2005;63:381–399. Duraković A. On depleted uranium: gulf war and Balkan syndrome. Croat Med J. 2001;42:130–134.
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  131.  @rebelmango2141  The war was over 2 decades ago! If you want to find more recent studies, you can google just the same as me. Mate there is zero doubt at all, tons of evidence uranium is dangerous. Vaporised uranium is way more dangerous than solid uranium. DU is 40% less reactive than natural uranium. It's just ignorant to argue DU isn't dangerous. It's like arguing smoking isn't dangerous or mercury isn't dangerous.
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  132. Corruption in the Soviet Union times was less than now.
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  133. The Wagner sledgehammer incident was fake, the guy who was supposedly executed was filmed with Prigozhin a few weeks later.
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  134.  @SP-nx8qx  haha ok well google the Melian dialogue it describes an early example of a genocide by Thucydides
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  135.  @SP-nx8qx  I've been to some of those islands, not that one. Beautiful country, excellent people.
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  136. I don't know this for sure but if I had to bet, USA and Germany accusing Ukraine is a distraction from the actual culprits - and Seymour Hersh told us who they are. It goes without saying that elements within German intelligence and the German government were onboard with the sabotage.
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  137.  @Leiska86  North Korea produces vastly more artillery ammunition than all EU countries put together. Yes, you're right that Europe hypothetically could increase armaments production massively. But it's an entirely hypothetical argument. In such a serious emergency that doing so out prioritised economic health and social spending. It's not going to happen and even if it did, by the time they've finally build up that industry the war is over. Let's stick to what is likely to happen, not hypothetical speculations about something we know will not happen. What I expect to happen is new European leaders are going to want nothing to do with Ukraine.
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  138. Definitely, the US Army was hoping to replace a lot of their old equipment with new equipment, using the Ukraine armaments funds.
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  139.  @MarvinWestmaas  You're less human than most Russians, you're the worst kind of racist, no self awareness.
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  140. I bet Blackrock isn't buying assets east of the Dniepr!
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  141. Russia's nuclear weapons are pretty modern, most US nuclear weapons are cold war era.
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  142.  @Lesminster  Probably true but this narrative that a nuclear war against Russia is "winnable" is blatantly wrong and extremely dangerous.
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  143. The "official" Western narrative is just as bad as the Russian propaganda narrative. Also youtube and the like push pro-Ukraine channels. There are good neutral channels: History Legends, Theti Mapping, Weeb Union, Military Summary. Willy's channel is pro-Ukraine but at least attempts to be a bit sceptical.
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  144. Or more likely just don't care about Ukrainian lives and want to cost the Russians as many losses as possible even if the fighting is extremely one sided.
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  145.  @AG-vb6vv  In the lead up to the invasion, Ukraine was put on a membership path to NATO and Zelensky started talking about acquiring nuclear weapons. I don't think the waiting game was realistic for Russia. The two options were either invade when Russia did or alternatively, just accept that Ukraine was going to get stronger. Unless the Kremlin was willing to give up both Donbas and Crimea, war was probably inevitable. I can see how the Kremlin's calculation was better fight a war now than fight a war later with Ukraine even stronger and possibly with nuclear weapons. BTW, Ukraine had the technology and the infrastructure to build nuclear weapons very quickly if that decision were made. And obviously it also has its own effective delivery systems.
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  146. There's no chance the Ukrainians did it, that story is just the Americans deflecting attention from themselves.
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  147. 27 million is probably for the whole Soviet Union,16 million for Russia is probably not far off.
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  148.  @ad2040  Maybe but it still has a large air force and in a longer war it could expand to millions of men pretty quickly. But anyway nobody wants an accidental nuclear war.
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  149. Exaggerated ... his takes have always minimised Russian problems. It's obvious Russia is winning but Scott Ritter goes way too far.
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  150. There's strong evidence the missile which hit the market place came from the north. Irrefutable evidence even. Hard to see how it can possibly be Russian. Even Julian Roepke pro-Ukrainian journalist for Das Bild admits this.
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  151.  @LoveBagpipes  Twitter and I think maybe DPA but it was back in Bakhmut days. Could be the Russians have fixed things since then.
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  152.  @LoveBagpipes  Can't you just use google? It's not even surprising. Both sides acknowledge the Russians fire way more rounds than the Ukrainians. How would they magically avoid wearing out barrels?
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  153.  @LoveBagpipes  LOL there are tons of images online ok I'll pander to your laziness. Google David Axe Artillery Forbes article from 25 July 2022. Yes I know David Axe is full of ** but the image there is genuine.
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  154.  @off6848  Yeah the Russian artillery tends to be lower pressure but they fire so much more in total they wear out the barrels anyway.
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  155. Ukraine joining the EU would be the end of the EU. Seriously. Ukraine is big and corrupt and dirt poor. The EU is starting to crack already, it would be the final straw.
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  156.  @elKarlo  At some point the moderate elements in Ukraine, possibly guys like Zaluzhny are going to either convince or displace the extremists. It might not be this year but just like Germany in 1918, the leadership are going to realise continued fighting is a disaster. It'll be interesting to see how pro-NATO post war Ukraine will be; it could be that there's a backlash against the American neocons. Especially in those not so Ukrainian regions which have done disproportionate dying like the Hungarian and Romanian border regions and the Russian speaking north east.
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  157.  @LtSich  The Americans are dreaming if they think there are no consequences for them of escalating. If this becomes a general nuclear war, American cities will get incinerated as well as European cities.
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  158.  @acsmith44  If this becomes a general war between NATO and Russia, it becomes a nuclear war. Russia would 100% use a nuclear weapon to warn the West to back off. How does the West respond then? I don't think you've thought this through.
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  159.  @colincampbell4261  US shipping sailing through a war zone.
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  160. Russia is containing the Ukrainian advance before the main Russian defensive line. Russia has nothing to gain by this. What Ukraine has to gain is the potential to escalate the war. Ukraine has been trying to pull NATO into the hot war since the start.
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  161. The Duran are more often right than wrong but they are blatantly pro-Russian and often exaggerate. If they had been accurate, Ukraine would have collapsed long ago.
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  162.  @MMABlur  At least 50 VDV were killed at Hostomel - out of a pre war strength of around 40k. It's slightly more than one in a thousand of their original numbers killed in that battle. And according to you that's going to degrade their institutional skill and experience? Puh-lease!
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  163.  @StrawHat83  LOL you're pretty gullible aren't you. Take Kosovo for example. The "G word" was an invention of NATO government propaganda, propagated by the media. Much like the "G word" in Syria - which didn't exist until the US started a war solely because Syria was a Russian ally. Iraq 2 wasn't based on "flawed intelligence", it was based on deliberate lies to start a war. As for the "G word", anyone can claim that anywhere. You ask what's Putin's excuse. Part of his excuse is Ukrainian genocide against ethnic Russians. Yes, this is mainly a lie. But no more than most of the times NATO uses it. There are real genocides going on in the world. But in places the US doesn't have a geostrategic reason to get involved ie. Darfur. If stopping genocide was the genuine reason for sending in soldiers, why did the US stand back during the Rwandan genocide? Like some Rwandan politician said - because we have no oil.
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  164.  @rebelmango2141  Yes I'm not talking about the first Gulf War - which did actually have UN backing. I'm only talking about the 2003 invasion. Yes all countries lie when wars are concerned. Russia tells lies too.
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  165. Look at it this way - if Russia really had any worry about losing the war it could 1) conscript another half a million men or 2) use a nuclear weapon to threaten the West to back off. The fact that it has not bothered even running another round of mobilisation suggests to me the Russians think the war is under control.
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  166. Normal people don't voluntarily go to risk their lives in a war which has nothing to do with them and then talk about it on the internet afterwards. It could be the more serious and informed guys fighting in Ukraine aren't so keen to talk about it. Also which ever side they're on, they're getting a lot of propaganda from that side and few people would do the digging and thinking to see through the propaganda. It's pretty amusing that all the same accusations and stereotypes the Ukrainians say about the Russians, the Russians say about Ukrainians.
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  167. Maybe some of the stories were "borrowed" :)
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  168. The TOS systems are themselves highly vulnerable.
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  169.  @mormacil  DU is 100% radioactive. Every single atom of DU is radioactive. Every single atom of DU will eventually release a highly dangerous alpha particle - highly dangerous if it's inside your body because it's been vaporised hitting a tank on farmland then used to grow food.
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  170. Sure, they're going to drive to Berlin and put their flag on the Reichstag again, and you believe this .. why?
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  171. Yeah this crazy talk about taking Crimea just means the population is going to get a bigger shock when the final collapse comes, like Germany in the First World War. The Ukrainian refusal to face reality just forces Russia to keep fighting for longer, kills more people on both sides and makes post war reconciliation harder.
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  172.  @ЕвгенийПершин-е1ь  Rumble and Telegraph seem to be pretty uncensored. I think Rumble even pulled out of France altogether when France tried to get them to censor - which is an impressive sacrifice for a private company.
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  173.  @edc1569  Norway is the single biggest supplier of gas to Europe since the war started! Or it was earlier on, it might have been overtaken by US LNG now but anyway, it's making incredible profits from this war. Obviously nobody is arguing it would do it without the approval of certain other countries but it certainly has the incentive.
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  174. Did you miss the Vic Nuland "f**k the EU" phone call?
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  175. Don't worry NATO is about to start a new war in Africa.
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  176.  @johnwebster5005  Yes I don't even get what Britain was hoping to achieve by taking a stance on the war even more hawkish than America has taken.
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  177. Nicely put. IMO it's naïve to even pretend another country did it. Even before the Hersch article, it was highly suspicious that no proper investigation was allowed. Much like the Wuhan lab - if there had been nothing to hide, the site would have been thrown open to international inspection.
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  178. How would you feel if a different ethnic group showed up and took over your land by force? Go and read (Israeli) historians Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe.
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  179. Taking Crimea is not realistic. If Russia really felt threatened they could mobilise another one million, two million men whatever they needed to. And they could use tactical nuclear weapons. What then? NATO either backs down or commits suicide by starting WW3.
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  180. Friendly fire happens a lot. Given the location it's the most likely explanation.
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  181.  @jamesmorrow1646  Most of the West is moving in the Fascist direction. Look at how protesters against lockdowns and vaccines were treated throughout the West especially Australia and France and Canada. A country can't claim to still be a liberal democracy when peaceful protesters have their bank accounts frozen without proper judicial process or are savaged by unaccountable riot police. Look at the January 6th protesters in America, many are still in prison for no more than trespass. Look at how Julian Assange was framed with pretext crimes and persecuted for exposing lies and corruption. Is Russia really worse?
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  182.  @iannothling2791  Yes that matches my misunderstanding exactly. One thing to add, covering the Kharkov front was a major mess up by Russia. The generals responsible for that front miscalculated their own strength and didn't see the Ukrainian build up. It was a genuine Ukrainian victory but it won't be repeated.
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  183.  @teddypicker6969  Two points - if you think Russia loses 3 x more vehicles and equipment, you're putting way too much trust in Oryx - which is a far from neutral source. Secondly, Ukraine relies on infantry attacks much more than Russia does. Even the Ukrainians admit they have a severe shortage of vehicles. Thirdly - use your common sense. Both sides acknowledge that Russia has anything from a five times to a ten times artillery advantage. Fourthly - be consistent. When Russia was attacking Bakhmut (successfully), NATO fan boys like you were claiming the attacker always takes much higher casualties. Over the past couple of months, most of the attacking has been done by Ukraine. It's obvious to anyone who watches footage who's taking the higher casualties. Fifthly - I don't watch propaganda sources generally, I use sources that at least try to be neutral. You should try it. You might be shocked at the difference between neutral sources and the cherry picked propaganda you've been wasting your time on.
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  184. Well put, these people who think Russia will just never respond to all this escalation are living in a dream world. The Russians must have already been sorely tempted to use a tactical nuclear weapon to warn the West to back off.
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  185.  @disposabull  Storm Z guys are definitely used as cannon fodder but VDV? I haven't seen any evidence of that.
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  186. Millions of Ukrainian women have already left the country and are unlikely to ever go back.
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  187. @@AquaFyrre You only have to go as far back as the Taleban to find an example.
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  188. The West has overwhelming dominance in the propaganda war in Western countries. Pretending Russian propaganda is "insanely active" ignores that NATO propaganda is ubiquitous. The Bandera cult in the nationalist elements of the Ukrainian army is hardly a conspiracy theory.
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  189. I'd put it higher. 0.1%
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  190.  @ethanitus8028  I'm not seeing any evidence of that. The Russian economy is growing. Sanctions have failed. BRICS is expanding and in the new economic order emerging in the world, BRICS is going to be huge. Russia is going to be one of the three leading powers in BRICS, together with India and China. Obviously this is not inevitable but that's the way things are going. The Russian military is actually stronger now than when the war began. It's certainly more competent and battle hardened. We don't see the same mistakes and occasional incompetence of even a year ago. The kind of commanders who threw a BTG at a river crossing under artillery bombardment or mismanaged the assault on Vuhledar are gone. The guys in command now are successful both in offensive and defence.
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  191.  @johnjennings9043  Yes, the claim that Russia is taking high casualties is totally implausible. Mediazona puts huge resources into identifying Russian casualties and even if many individuals are missed, the numbers killed are still less than 50,000 whereas there are multiple reasons to think Ukrainian deaths are going to be at least 150k possibly over 200k. About a year ago Van Der Leyen admitted by accident 100k Ukrainian deaths and footage since then suggests the rate of Ukrainian casualties has intensified. An investigation into amputees estimated 50k Ukrainian amputees which isn't that different for the whole of Britain in the First World War in which it lost three quarters of a million killed. Admittedly mines are more important in this war than in 1914-1918 but there are other circumstantial reasons too pointing to very high Ukrainian deaths.
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  192.  @derekbaker3279  If you believe that you should broaden your sources because every single neutral source agrees the Russian Kharkov front was very thinly manned.
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  193. Denys Davydov left Ukraine illegally to avoid conscription, lives in Switzerland and makes a good living pushing propaganda. The guy accuses the Russians of all kinds of stuff including cowardice where the biggest coward of the whole war is himself. No criticism of Ukrainian guys who escape conscription overseas to avoid dying at the front but this piece of ** specifically did that then makes his living from exploiting the guys on each side with the courage to fight for their countries.
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  194. Two big differences, Chernobyl was actually turned on when the meltdown happened. Energodar is shut down (mainly) so moderator rods will be inserted into the core to stop any chain reaction. Also Chernobyl was a much more dangerous design. There could be a radiation leak but it would be pretty limited. No argument that it could be much worse than Three Mile Island though.
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  195.  @_c_y_p_3  That's a BS. argument. .Ukraine is usual but people say the Ukraine too. Russian/Ukrainian doesn't even have a word for "the".
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  196.  @jaysimpson6857  Escalation is highly dangerous. Ultimately it ends with WWIII. Russia expects it can outlast the West and win a war of attrition therefore it has nothing to gain by escalating. It's simple game theory. That's why almost all the escalation has been from the NATO side. People keep claiming Russia will never respond to escalation and so escalation is safe (i.e. all Russian threats are bluffing) but that's a pretty stupid misunderstanding based on failure to analyse the Russian viewpoint. At some point Russia is forced to respond to escalations. That's how the failure to renew the grain deal is best understood too. Escalating Ukrainian attacks, broken Turkish promises. Anyway "taking the gloves off" would be a mistake for Russia. The war is costing them lives and money but Russia can sustain the current trajectory indefinitely, Ukraine can not. If this trajectory continues, Ukraine collapses - eventually. Therefore a dangerous attempt to change the trajectory is just not worth the risk for Russia.
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  197. Russia has swapped with a better ratio in the past e.g. more Ukrainians for fewer Russians.
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  198.  @e-machine-ol1987  In general the German generals who survived liked to blame AH for all kinds of stuff including the Stalingrad debacle and Halder was especially notorious for this. Obviously AH made mistakes too, it's just a warning to be sceptical of the AH is to blame narrative. TIK really did an amazing job with the Stalingrad series. But it's not a casual watch.
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  199.  @iivanforchune9666  Yeah the World at War series interviews were excellent. A lot of excellent historiography has come out over the past 25 years it's not all rubbish. This is normal, Our understanding of even the First World war is much better now than it was 25 years ago. There are all kinds of myths about both wars which have been demolished.
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  200.  @quantumfairing2216  I said the Soviet Union won both those wars. How can you possibly disagree with that? I honestly don't understand how you can claim the Soviet Union didn't win both those wars. Finland gave up territory after both wars. Are you going to argue the US didn't lose in Vietnam because it took lower casualties than North Vietnam? Are you going to claim Germany wasn't defeated by the Soviet Union in 1945 because it took lower casualties? That's just moronic. These two wars were catastrophic for Finland. Everyone at the time regarded it so. As for exact casualties - actually unknown how many casualties the Soviet Union took in these wars. The numbers you mention are possible but not necessarily correct. Dig in to where the numbers come from and you'll see.
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  201. According to your logic the Jewish Holocaust didn't happen because there are now more Jewish people in the world than in the 1930s.
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  202.  @Euroscot9155  No I don't deliberately waste time on propaganda from either side except it's interesting to see what Zeihan's saying just to see what the US State Dept. wants the uninformed public to believe. If you think the likes of History Legends, DPA, Weeb Union and Miltary Summary are Russian propaganda then you've already been brainwashed.
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  203.  @Bluest_of_Blue_Waffles  That's a bit vague, you can't say everyting Scott Ritter says is wrong - even though obviously he overstates his case at times. History Legends Alex often points out Russian claims are BS. He points out BS from both sides. If you think he's overall pro-Russian no it's just that Russia is winning ever more decisively. This was always going to happen since the Russians stopped the Ukrainian 2022 offensive and the Russian economy didn't collapse early on and is now reorientating eastwards. Time was always going to be on Russia's side. As for how the war started, it wasn't Russia which expanded 1000km westwards towards NATO. Are you familiar with Jacques Baud? Swiss intelligence officer. Look into his books on the origins of the war and the nature of the fighting.
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  204.  @col0342  Another example. May 1945
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  205. It's a mistake to take Zelensky so seriously. There's no point wasting time debunking Ukraine taking Donetsk City when Ukraine is being forced back across most of the front.
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  206. Agree, the war is expensive for Russia, Russia can keep it up but offer decent terms and Putin would probably be glad to shut down the war. Putin wants to get back to peace to stop the dying, rebuild the military and reorientate the economy to Asia. Unlikely to happen soon though because the Ukrainian leadership would be disgraced and the Ukrainian population doesn't know they've lost yet.
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  207. Anyone who believes Russian casualties are higher is either an idiot or has not put enough effort into questioning the propaganda.
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  208. The Germans chose this mess for themselves. Merkel admitted Minsk II was never intended seriously and was just to buy time to rearm Ukraine. The Germans should have put their foot down when Nordstream was bombed. The current German government is 100% Atlanticist even though the German population is becoming sceptical. If the Germans ever wake up, A Russian/German economic alliance would allow Germany to break free of the Americans and reinvigorate Germany.
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  209.  @mortmortannon6640  The kind of statistics your calculations are based on are from ethnically homogenous, highly nationalistic early twentieth century European countries with much younger populations than modern Ukraine. Most people in Ukraine have no interest in fighting for the regime. Indeed many of them would rather fight for the Russians. Compared to 1914-1918 Europe or 1939-1945 Europe, a huge section of that 40 million population are too old to fight for anyone. And it's not just women and children that have left. Fighting age men are resorting to bribery or other extreme measures to get out.
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  210.  @mortmortannon6640  I'm certainly not arguing that nobody wants to fight for the regime, there are still many such individuals and formations with high morale, just not enough. It's obvious they're struggling to maintain manpower after the hundreds of thousands of casualties they've taken. There are plenty of videos online of the police pulling teenagers and old men off the street for the army and there are lots of guys in hiding so they don't get drafted. Also there are many cases of Ukrainian units retreating without orders and refusing to return to the front much like the French army in 1917 and the Germans in 1918. Already the Ukrainian army is disbanding brigades which have been effectively shattered. Western European armies of the 1914-1918 war were extremely patriotic and nationalistic. Serious corruption was rare. Whereas corruption in Ukraine is chronic. Yes it's pretty bad in Russia too but worse in Ukraine. Everyone knows the rich pay bribes to keep out the army and are partying it up while the poor are having their lives thrown away in suicidal attacks or abandoned in defensive positions without support. Extortionate bribes have made those with authority to draft recruits multimillionaires. This is not a society which can take millions of casualties and keep fighting regardless. The population has already dropped below thirty million due to emigration over the past year.
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  211. Yeah Bozo is a deluded bumbling clown who can't face reality because if he did, he'd be admitting he has a lot of the blame for the catastrophe of Project Ukraine.
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  212. Totally agree, the UK MOD releases are just propaganda. The Russians got a nasty surprise by the Kharkov offensive, after that, they were very, very wary and pessimistic. The Crimean offensives were started around that time. Since then the Russian mobilised reserves are trained and the Russian position keeps improving.
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  213. More realistic is about half of that ... still a lot of people. And most of them will never go back because after the war, the economy will be destroyed. There's no coming back from this for Ukraine.
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  214.  @a.brekkan4965  Anyone who thinks that is an idiot. Any use of nuclear weapons would probably escalated to an unrestrained nuclear wear between NATO and Russia.
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  215. So invite some into your own home
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  216.  @cameroncrider6970  Wouldn't that be convenient - so Israel steals the land of other people and it's up to their neighbours to take in the refugees. How about in the "rules based order" the US keeps talking about Israel complies with UN resolutions and withdraws from the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
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  217.  @Lexoka  Perhaps if you want "official" confirmation but it was obvious from footage which direction it came from. People were pointing this out withing minutes of the first footage coming out.
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  218.  @colincampbell4261  Are you sure NATO countries want to fight a nuclear war with Russia? There's this moronic rhetoric that the Russians are all bluff but at some point if they're pushed hard enough of course they'll retaliate. If they start fighting aircraft launched from Polish airfields, they'd be mad NOT to hit those airfields - because if they didn't, they're fighting a losing war against NATO at a disadvantage. It's almost certain the Polish government understands this and doesn't want to be in the front line of a nuclear war.
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  219. Ukrainian fighters are being shot out of the sky far behind Ukrainian lines, it's pretty naive to think attack helicopters could survive for long.
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  220. It was a bad choice of words to use it at all but from the context, he was using it sarcastically. Don't read too much into it.
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  221.  @Sukhothai77  Took me literally less than a minute to find this .... if youtube lets me post it
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  222. Why would F16s make much difference? Just like Ukrainian Patriots and S300s can shoot down Russian aircraft, Russian S300s and S400s and Pantsirs can shoot down F16s. Air defence is a Russian strong point.
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  223. For Ukraine to fight a war of attrition against Russia, a much bigger, richer and more united country was never a winning proposition, even with all the NATO backing.
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  224. unbiased?! LOL ... The entire world except the USA votes one way and according to Willie, the entire world except the USA is in the wrong. Think about that.
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  225.  @seniorbuttocksbiggusdickus7147  In the immediate aftermath of the dam blowing, Ukraine opened the upstream flood gates but after peak flooding level downstream, closed them again. Those are the facts. As for who blew the dam originally we can't be sure but I have my suspicions. Let's just say anyone who accused Russia of blowing the NS pipeline should remember first we had the Seymour Hersh article and since then we have the Americans accusing Ukraine.
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  226. Peter Zeihan is a shameless neocon propaganda merchant. If Gazprom wanted to get out of the contract all it had to do was have someone accidentally shove a spanner in the turbines and claim they can't be fixed due to Western sanctions. Nobody except Putin can make Gazprom pay if they don't want to pay, contract or no. Instead Zeihan is arguing the Russians destroyed literally hundreds of millions of dollars worth of their own gas plus did billions of damage to infrastructure which they mainly own plus lost their leverage over Germany in the process. As Biden would say - C'MON MAN!
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  227.  @Oktokolo  Good analysis. The reason Putin seems to fight with one hand tied behind his back is he's being careful not to escalate. He thinks time is on Russia's side and all they need to do to win is keep doing what they're doing now without starting World War Three.
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  228. Yes but it's been flattened by artillery since.
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  229. It's not true that the radioactivity is weak. The rate of decay is very slow so the amount of gamma coming off a lump of metal is small but when munitions are vaporised on farmland, it gets inside the human body where even a tiny amount of alpha radiation is dangerous because it's such a heavy particle.
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  230.  @giovanni-ed7zq  Prigozhin also said Ukrainian casualties were higher than Russian casualties even when they weren;'t getting enough ammunition. As for obituaries, the Meduza project partly run by the BBC tracks Russian deaths, a few months ago identified 47,000. Obviously it'll be higher now and some will be missed but 300k deaths is pure fantasy. The real number will be more like 50,000 to 70,000
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  231.  @МихаилЧерников-п2т  Yep. Well more recent numbers are over 40,000 identified so yeah it could be as much as 70,000. But these clowns are claiming 300,000 Russians killed.
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  232.  @PitchBlackTales  That's delusional. Nobody wants a war with Russia. In Germany or France, that would bring down their governments instantly. Professional European armies far too small to take on the Russians and in any case, the Russians have two years hard experience now fighting a major war, European armies have at best counter insurgency experience, nothing more. As for the British army, it'd be out of ammunition in the first few days. The Danish army has already given Ukraine its artillery. Who's going to replace casualties? Muslim immigrants? Only NATO airforces are going to be a match for the Russians and what's to stop the Russians waiting for them to deploy to Ukraine then using tactical nuclear weapons on the airbases? If European governments thought they could miitarily defeat Russia they would have joined the war long ago. Only the Baltic governments are insane enough to want to fight Russia and Putin would love an excuse to squash them.
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  233.  @tonydevos  The "Ukrainians" didn't decide to have their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren poisoned generations into the future. A small group of men who will probably not even stay in the country after the war is over decided.
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  234. Some of the MIA will be desertions who are still alive.
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  235.  @arjan2777  One of the several mistakes you make is you think Ukraine will have the long term option to resist Russia. It's like saying why would Germany accept peace in 1945 if that means being demilitarised, partitioned, looted and held under military occupation? The answer should be obvious. Unconditional surrender earlier would have saved a lot of lives and destruction.
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  236. Agree about NATO but there's zero chance Russia will hand back the land bridge to Crimea.
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  237.  @teddypicker6969  The distance that matters the most is artillery distance and mortar distance. Ukraine doesn't have an advantage there at all.
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  238.  @teddypicker6969  Where are you getting that little factoid from? Don't say Oryx, the Netherlands propaganda website linked to Bellingcat.
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  239.  @teddypicker6969  No, neither Oryx nor Bellingcat are neutral sources. There's plenty of evidence online about this. Yes they do show losses of both sides but there are plenty of ways they skew their results. Have a google, you'll find it interesting. Bellingcat has actually been funded by the US government! I mean if you're pro-US fair enough but don't be surprised later on if it turns out the US State dept. propaganda about what's happening in Ukraine turns out to be wrong. Like it usually does. e.g. like it did in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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  240.  @teddypicker6969  I can see I wrote a pretty long reply four hours ago ... can you see it? If not then it's been censored.
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  241. The Duran are more right than wrong but they are blatantly biased in favour of Russia. They both make implausible excuses for any Russian setbacks and dismiss Ukrainian achievements and this has happened throughout the war. So be as careful with them as with any other source. Having said that they;'re still right that Ukraine will lose :)
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  242. The likes of Time doesn't report anything the US deep state doesn't want reported. The fact they dumped on Zelensky indicates the Americans want him replaced. Question is, whom with? The only real alternative is Zaluzhny and he's the scapegoat guy for Nordstream.
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