War in Ukraine

[NCFisher]

And what were the people of Crimea saying and tried to vote on? Who was listening to them? What are the people of eastern Ukraine saying? Who is listening to them?

We know what Ukraine is saying.
Eastern Ukraine, despite the allure of a Russian GDP/cap about 2.5x Ukraine's, wish to be Ukrainian:
Ukraine Poll: Majority Want Donbas to Remain in Ukraine
Most people in separatist-held areas of Donbas prefer reintegration with Ukraine – new survey
Survey: Majority of Donbas residents want to be part of Ukraine - Emerging Europe

The Crimea is a murkier proposition that may or may not be a majority of the people who opted for Russia. Russian friends here say it's not so, I don't know. That seeding and supporting insurgency groups among former satellites and using 'protecting Russians everywhere' is a Putin blueprint is not arguable.

 

[evillawyer]

They got emselves another one.

 

[tvolsfan]

We know what Ukraine is saying.
Eastern Ukraine, despite the allure of a Russian GDP/cap about 2.5x Ukraine's, wish to be Ukrainian:
Ukraine Poll: Majority Want Donbas to Remain in Ukraine
Most people in separatist-held areas of Donbas prefer reintegration with Ukraine – new survey
Survey: Majority of Donbas residents want to be part of Ukraine - Emerging Europe

The Crimea is a murkier proposition that may or may not be a majority of the people who opted for Russia. Russian friends here say it's not so, I don't know. That seeding and supporting insurgency groups among former satellites and using 'protecting Russians everywhere' is a Putin blueprint is not arguable.

Either way, it shouldn't matter. All of Ukraine voted for independence in 1991, including the majority of Crimea. If Russians in Crimea wanted to live in Russia, they should have moved. Anything done at gunpoint was illegitimate.

 

[luthervol]

His approval has risen since the incursion.

No it hasn't.

 

[NCFisher]

They have reason, but they also have might. This is why I say Ukraine should accept a reasonable ceasefire. Then you guys lose your minds because you think a magic fairy (no not @Septic with his homo-erotic fantasies) is going to come in and save Ukraine from the inevitable ass kicking they are getting from a mightier power.

Welcome to reality, some of you should live in it. Russia tried diplomacy but Zelensky couldn't find a phone book thick enough to get his head above the table and felt embarrassed so they never showed up. Russia said to hell with and now, what do we have, some attempts at diplomacy from Ukraine.

It's not diplomacy to say you will remain a struggling former satellite in our shitey orbit or we'll use implanted thugs and a pretense to seize your country and plant our guy. Your 'might is right ploy' means your arguments to this point were Russian thug apologia. At least be honest and just stay with that instead of the fantastical Ukrainian Nazi government is killing E. Ukraine citizens, and Putin just wants to stop it.

 

[NCFisher]

Homoerotic? Did I say something that turned you on? Does someone mopping the floor with your intellect give you a little chub? You have a little masochist kink?

LOL, seriously though... Watching you flounder with your nutty explanations and half witted justifications are light work. Hell even my usual sparring partners are exponentially more challenging than you and they're making you look like a goof too.

Tell us more about the free and fair democracy and all the journalistic freedom Russians enjoy.

Which doesn't mean you aren't a doody-head.

 

[NCFisher]

Hmmm. Maybe this is the meat of the problem. Apparently Zelinsky is only 5'7", and Putin is estimated to be between 5'1" and 5'5" ... but claims 5'7". Could it all be nothing more than the Napoleon complex, and Putin losing out to a short guy who is still taller than Putin? Maybe it's why the long table Putin uses - smoke and mirrors to make him look big, and nobody gets close enough to know what Putin's personal issues are. Being the heathen and anti authoritarian that I am, I'd propose calling Putin "Russia's dwarf despot".

I mouthed off to Andre the Giant once. We were seated at opposite ends of the football stadium with Putin's conference table spanning the distance.
Dude looked like a midget; I was emboldened.

 

[NorthDallas40]

His approval has risen since the incursion.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

 

[NCFisher]

Just basing that on how the US usually preps for these sorts of revolutions. A combination of prior history and some independent reporting. Obviously, the CIA isn't going to announce to the world that they have military assets in an area.

LOL... OK. I'm done with you. I see you aren't even serious right now.

I think you'd ask for something more substantial than that as evidence we sent mercs into Russia, for example.
I'll bet you are. You made another unsupported assertion - that your own evidentiary link didn't support and contradicted; who's not serious?

 

[MontyPython]

Ukraine Is Wrecking Russian Tanks With a Gift From Britain

In video after video taken in Ukraine, a puff of smoke and a brief flash of light signal that another clutch of Russian troops are about to die.

Sometimes it is only a split second before that light streaks to a tank or armored vehicle that suddenly erupts in smoke and flame, often bursting from within as ammunition inside explodes.

Rewinding these videos a bit often shows Ukrainian soldiers before the attack, patrolling to an ambush point with large green tubes carried on their backs — each one a gift from Britain. In perhaps 15 seconds, and sometimes even faster than that, the soldiers can unsling the weapon, unfold its aiming sight, release a safety catch and wait for their prey to appear.

The green tubes are called NLAWs, for Next Generation Light Anti-Tank Weapons. They are the result of decades of weapons research dedicated to building small lightweight guided missiles that may have evened the balance of power in combat between the fearsome tank and the soldier.

Compared to the American-made Javelin antitank weapon, which has been hailed by officials at the Pentagon and the White House and sent to Ukraine by the thousands, the NLAW weighs about half as much, costs far less, can be easily discarded, and is optimized for use in the relatively short-range fights Ukrainian soldiers are getting into with the invading Russian forces.

The NLAW is a product of the Swedish company Saab and has been sold to a number of NATO countries — including Britain, which assembles the missiles at a factory in Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the British Army. And although the British Army also has the Javelin, it began purchasing NLAWs about 10 years ago and has been sending them to Ukraine in ever greater numbers.

A British diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss defensive aid, said Britain had sent more than 4,200 NLAWs to Ukraine.
“We still assess it to be one of the best short-range defensive anti-tank weapons around,” the diplomat said.

The Javelin and the NLAW, both of which an individual soldier can carry and fire, include features previously only seen in much larger and more cumbersome weapons, the kinds that usually have to be mounted on vehicles.

Both weapons can be fired directly at targets like enemy soldiers or a building, but when attacking vehicles they can also be programmed to hit from above — where a tank or armored personnel carrier has the least armor. The American weapon can pop up and then dive down to impact and explode, while the British missile flies a shorter path — crossing over its target and firing its charge downward.

The result, however, as shown in Ukraine is the same: an uncounted number of destroyed Russian tanks, armored personnel carriers and trucks.

The missiles have succeeded despite efforts to defeat them. The Russian military had said, and Pentagon leadership believed, that a defensive system on the newest T-90 tanks was capable of sensing and destroying anti-tank missiles like Javelins and NLAWs in flight. In an apparently new countermeasure, Russian troops are welding improvised cages of parallel steel bars atop tank turrets. Video evidence shows that both defenses, however, have failed.

The Javelin, which was designed toward the end of the Cold War, consists of two parts: a 15-pound reusable launcher that soldiers often use for reconnaissance and surveillance, given its suite of thermal cameras that can zoom in and out for finding targets, and a 33-pound disposable tube that contains the missile itself. The newer NLAW, by comparison, weighs just under 28 pounds and has no camera — just a simple sight to aim.

And while the Javelin can kill tanks from as far away as two and a half miles, its missile flies slower than the NLAW, which is most accurate for targets up to only about a half mile away. For moving targets, the Javelin can guide itself while in flight, thanks to a heat-seeker in the missile’s nose, whereas a soldier firing an NLAW simply points the weapon at a moving vehicle, engages the guidance system and tracks the target for a few seconds before firing. The missile then flies to a point where it predicts the target will be.

The capabilities of the two weapons make the Javelin more like a sniper rifle for taking out armored vehicles at extreme distances, the British diplomat said, while the NLAW is better for close-quarter battles and ambush scenarios.

Given that the Ukrainians are unable to fight Russian armor with tanks of their own, they must use different tactics, the diplomat said, adding that the Ukrainians have shown the will and the extraordinary nerve to get close to tanks and destroy them in these missile attacks.

“You need to know how to fight, and you need the means, but it’s the will — what’s in the heart of the Ukrainians to fight?” the diplomat said. “They’re fighting an existential threat and they’re not giving up. So we’ve given them, at their request as a sovereign nation, the tools to go and do this.”

 

[NCFisher]

Just the opposite. We need Russians killing more Nazis.

Like the wildly popular Zelensky government supported by the people you say aren't Nazis - ? I think you've caught your own tail.
It's tedious to have to use blue font; my apologies for omitting prior.

 

[NCFisher]

Putin not being a psychotic ex boyfriend and letting those countries chose their own destiny.

Glad someone else picked up on the halter T-shirt, wife-thumping vibe.

 

[MontyPython]

Forbes:

Ukraine Is Doubling Its Army, While Russia Scrapes The Barrel For Reinforcements

 

[Orangeburst]

China-backed Hong Kong SPAC to buy Forbes publisher in US$630 million deal

 

[zeppelin128]

This is just weird agreeing sometimes with luther and our resident lawyers, and sometimes disagreeing with people I normally agree with. Apparently the Russians are messing with our heads.

Indeed, strange days in the political forum lately.

 

[NCFisher]

This is just weird agreeing sometimes with luther and our resident lawyers, and sometimes disagreeing with people I normally agree with. Apparently the Russians are messing with our heads.

Right? I threw up a little and liked a couple of Monty's posts.
Well, gotta' go shower; later!

 

[zeppelin128]

Off topic, but LSU just lost.

 

[Franklin Pierce]

Ukraine zookeeper fears Hundreds of Animals Will Die Without More Food, Fuel: 'Dying of cold and hunger'

'Animals are innocent creatures ... They nave nothing to do with that war'

A private Ukraine zookeeper located outside Kyiv fears he will lose every animal under his care to starvation and cold if relief doesn't come soon.

Mykhailo Pinchuk, owner and founder of the "XII (12) Months" zoo in the village of Demydiv, told Fox News Digital he and the small staff still left are "desperate" to get either safe passage or livable conditions for the roughly 350 animals that include giraffes, hippos, tigers, lions, and chimpanzees. In the meantime, he's seeking a "green" humanitarian corridor to bring in badly needed food as well as fuel to keep the animals warm. They have been essentially cut off since the second day of the Russian invasion that began Feb. 24.

"[I'm trying] to draw the attention and somehow persuade the [Russian] troops, their commanders, their politicians, that animals are innocent creatures and these are the lives we have and must save, and they have nothing to do with that war," Pinchuk told Fox News Digital.

"I really hope they will not die like this," he added.

There is very little food left for the animals, who are being fed far under their usual daily rations. And with Russians encircling Kyiv, the only way out, Pinchuk said, would be to drive north to the hottest combat areas. So far, he has only been able to get scant Red Cross food rations in for him and his remaining seven staff members at the roughly 40-acre complex.

A rhino at the XII Months zoo in Demydiv, Ukraine. (XII Months Zoo, Ukraine

"We are crying, we're shouting, we're doing whatever we can to draw attention that I at least go there with some food and fuel to warm them up and feed them, and the smallest animals I can take to a different zoo," he said.

"You cannot transport a rhino by a broken bridge," he added, noting Ukrainian forces have destroyed bridges in an effort to stall the Russian advance.

So far, Pinchuk said the zoo has only lost a "few" animals, all due to panic over the shelling and bombing from Russian forces, including one monkey. The remaining ones are often unsettled by the explosions, and a staff that's one-tenth its usual size is left to keep the animals as calm and fed as possible.



Ukraine zookeeper fears hundreds of animals will die without more food, fuel: 'Dying of cold and hunger'

 

[Paper_Towel]

 

[Paper_Towel]

 

[McDad]

Off topic, but LSU just lost.

McRib does not appreciate your post.

 

[evillawyer]

 

[allvol123]

I see it is now illegal in Russia to use the term “war” or “invasion “ to describe Russian actions in Ukraine.

And there are people on this forum propping up this regime.

 

[hog88]

McRib does not appreciate your post.

Did you do a little ribbing?

 

[zeppelin128]

McRib does not appreciate your post.

Apologies to McRib, but LSU, Bama, and Kentucky all losing after we won our game by 32 is just fine by me. Oh and Florida not making the dance, forgot to mention that, too. Anyways, back to arguing.