Ukraine

[ProfX]

Dunno, much as I'd like to see a world without war ... I'd also like to see a world without awful boy bands, too, but then we don't live in that world.

Until we have that, the Geneva Conventions exist, and should be followed. And no, I do not give Shrubya a pass for the ones he violated in Iraq.

[Motor City]

I’m of the belief it was Russian troop’s committing horrendous atrocities.

The possibility raised was taking civilian casualties and staging atrocities by violating the corpses. Shooting, cutting off limbs, etc.

Not Ukraine military killing their on people as as suggested.

Do you think it was a mistake now for America to expend exhaust its own moral authority in the Iraq Afghanistan wars and in assisting the famine that starves Yemenis?

[Libertas]

Con scum


https://twitter.com/kristin__wilson/sta ... mFayBU2qQg

Six GOP House members voted against a bill that would require the State Dept to report and preserve evidence of war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.

Tom Massie (KY)
Scott Perry (PA)
Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA)
Warren Davidson (OH)
Andy Biggs (AZ)
Paul Gosar (AZ)

I wish we could declare war on Russia, dont tell anyone, arrest these folks for treason, then undeclare war. They deserve WORSE than that though.

[Motor City]

News was repeating the plea to buy weapons over and over then a dude came on and was talking about an economic noose tightening around their necks and I was thinking that sounds like whats happening to a lot of Americans right now.

[Libertas]

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/stat ... oXr5PWcL5w

Great news

The UN General Assembly has voted to suspend Russia from the human rights council

[ap215]

Zelensky on NATO: ‘no longer interested in their diplomacy’

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky, who has urged NATO to take stronger actions throughout Russia’s invasion, said in an interview that aired Sunday he is “no longer interested in their diplomacy.”

“When you’re working in diplomacy, there are no results. All of this is very bureaucratic,” Zelensky said in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes.”

https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... diplomacy/

[ap215]

Longtime MSNBC Analyst Malcolm Nance Leaves to Fight Russia in Ukraine

A longtime MSNBC on-air terrorism and national security analyst is now fighting Russians in Ukraine.

Malcolm Nance, a former naval intelligence officer who became executive director of The Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideologies after leaving the service, appeared on Joy Reid’s 7 PM program Monday from a “secure location,” where he revealed that he had joined the “International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine,” essentially a Ukrainian version of the French Foreign Legion.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv ... 235131824/

[Motor City]

https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein

This seems not ideal

In some cases it probly does know, I mean theres likely a fair amount of laundering going on in getting weapons to places they wouldnt otherwise be allowed to then there is also the fundraising and materials and weapon drives by all kinds of groups hiding behind a cause that appears respectable, business groups religious groups military groups former generals that kind of thing lot of it going on without much scrutiny.

[Motor City]

Longtime MSNBC Analyst Malcolm Nance Leaves to Fight Russia in Ukraine

A longtime MSNBC on-air terrorism and national security analyst is now fighting Russians in Ukraine.

Malcolm Nance, a former naval intelligence officer who became executive director of The Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideologies after leaving the service, appeared on Joy Reid’s 7 PM program Monday from a “secure location,” where he revealed that he had joined the “International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine,” essentially a Ukrainian version of the French Foreign Legion.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv ... 235131824/

do they mean like a mercenary for hire?

[bradman]

do they mean like a mercenary for hire?

Sounds like it's a volunteer force. For the most part it sounds like you give up your monied career but do receive a stipend.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... of_Ukraine

A British volunteer said that the contract required to join the International Legion limits pay to 7,000 hryvnias a month ($230) and extends for the duration of the war, although some volunteers were allowed to leave after signing.[42][43]

In the real sense of the definition,$230 dollars a month isn't what ya'd call paid mercenaries.

[ProfX]

We can debate Nance's motives, or how much real danger he's putting himself in, but I don't think it's for the money.

BTW, under terms of his contract, as he himself said the other day, MSNBC (or any other network) can no longer pay him to appear as a pundit/analyst, so he's given up all that money, too.

I can respect him for walking his talk.

There were a lot of Americans who signed up for the famous Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight the fascists in Spain. Lots been written about that. Of course, they (and the Spanish left) lost, and Franco took power for decades, the only Fascist to survive the end of WW II.

[Number6]

Ukraine's Air Force just got bigger when some country or countries gave them MiG 29s and spare parts.

Kyiv’s air force has “more operable fighter aircraft than they had two weeks ago,” Kirby told reporters Tuesday.

Donations of airplanes, and airplane parts, made it possible. “I would just say, without getting into what other nations are providing, that they have received additional platforms and parts to be able to increase their fleet size,” Kirby said.

The twin-engine, supersonic MiG-29 was the most numerous type in the pre-war air force. As many as 70 MiGs equipped three brigades at three bases with six squadrons between them—one brigade each in the western, central and southern regions of Ukraine.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/th ... li=BBorjTa

[Motor City]

Sounds like it's a volunteer force. For the most part it sounds like you give up your monied career but do receive a stipend.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... of_Ukraine


In the real sense of the definition,$230 dollars a month isn't what ya'd call paid mercenaries.

That wouldnt disable some military or intelligence or security contractor or other group from paying them or operating under the shroud of them either. The military weapons aid and various fundraising schemes thats a lot of fertile ground for some really bad stuff and a lot of places to hide that under.

[bradman]

That wouldnt disable some military or intelligence or security contractor or other group from paying them or operating under the shroud of them either. The military weapons aid and various fundraising schemes thats a lot of fertile ground for some really bad stuff and a lot of places to hide that under.

Ya, i dunno, MC. So far, what's going on in Ukraine doesn't really smack of Prince and Blackwater.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(company)

[ProfX]

Oh, there are some nasty mercenary groups in Ukraine, notably the Wagner Group and the Rusich Group, I've posted about them before; thing is it's the Russians that employ them, kinda like the LGM, to do their nasty work they need plausible deniability from (and, look, I won't dispute the U.S. used Blackwater for the same reasons).

P.S Azov Battalion may suck, but once again, google the Rusich Group, these folks ARE open neo-Nazis.

[bradman]

If i remember right, Azov's members/numbers are around 900 or so. They've been brought into the Ukrainian military and have had to lose some of it's hard core symbols.

A couple of new one's have slipped into my algorithm. Don't know what to make of them quite yet.........

https://english.nv.ua/nation/ammo-depot ... 37257.html
Ammo depot near Russia’s Belgorod is on fire

After a series of four explosions at an ammunition depot near Staraya Nelidovka, in Russia’s Belgorod oblast, the facility is on fire, regional governor Vyacheslav Gudkov said in a Telegram post on April 27.

This one definitely needs work........

https://www.yahoo.com/news/office-presi ... 08057.html
Office of the President on explosions in 3 Russian regions: "Divine intervention"

Iryna Balachuk - Wednesday, 27 April 2022, 11:49 Mykhailo Podoliak, Advisor to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, called the explosions in the Belgorod, Voronezh, and Kursk Regions of the Russian Federation part of an "entirely natural process" and "divine intervention into the sinners’ affairs." Source: Mykhailo Podoliak, on Telegram According to Podoliak: "If you [Russians] decided to attack another country, to indiscriminately kill people there, to drive tanks over the bodies of civilians - and if you are using depots in your regions to supply the weapons of this mass murder, then sooner or later you will have to repay your debts. You won’t be able to sit it out given the intensity and the scale of Russian military invasion in Ukraine. And so the disarmament of murderers’ depots in the Belgorod and Voronezh Regions is an entirely natural process. Karma is a b***h." Details: Podoliak said that the Belgorod, Voronezh, and Kursk Regions of Russia are "beginning to actively learn the meaning of ‘demilitarisation’." Podoliak also noted that large fuel and ammunition depots in the Russian Federation explode and catch fire for various reasons. "Including…divine intervention into the affairs of the sinners who murdered people in Ukraine’s Mariupol during Holy week," Advisor to the President’s Office said.

[bradman]

Another poster noticed this awhile back.......

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukrainians-n ... 26565.html
Ukrainians say they have no regrets after intentionally flooding their village to stop Russian tanks from reaching Kyiv

Ukrainians say they have no regrets after intentionally flooding the village of Demydiv to stop Russian tanks from reaching Kyiv, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Just a day after the war began, Ukrainian troops on February 25 opened a nearby dam to flood Demydiv, north of Kyiv, and the surrounding countryside, Times reported said.

Satellite imagery from March showed flooding in the Irpin River basin, northwest of Kyiv. But it was not immediately clear who or what caused the flooding until now after Ukrainians claimed credit for the sacrificial defensive move.

[Libertas]

This mass murder of human beings by Donald Trumps boss is not on the front page, so to speak, anymore.

Too many Americans who care about Ukraine (nobody who votes GOP can care, their vote proves it) are distracted by other things, myself included most of the time.

I dont know what is going to happen when WE HERE are faced with what the Ukrainian people are now faced with. This November we will have more than our hands full.

[carmenjonze]

As Russia frees American Trevor Reed from prison, is Brittney Griner any closer to coming home? - USA Today

When news broke Wednesday morning that Russia and the United States had participated in a prisoner swap, bringing former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed back home to America, many in the sports community had one question — what does this mean for Brittney Griner?

Griner, one of the top women’s basketball players in the world, has been detained in Russia since mid-February, when she was picked up in a Moscow-area airport after being accused of carrying cannabis oil in her luggage. Her next court date is set for May 19.

On Wednesday, a WNBA spokesman said, “we continue to have regular conversations with the U.S. government on Brittney Griner’s case and getting her home safe and as soon as possible remains the WNBA’s top priority.”

Sure, okay.

[Libertas]

As Russia frees American Trevor Reed from prison, is Brittney Griner any closer to coming home? - USA Today



Sure, okay.

What is the excuse to hold her?

Someone with nukes can do this all day long, hell they can do anything they want and KNOW that we cant actually do anything about it.

This vile pile of human excrement is LOVED by trump and MAGA.

[bradman]

Hindsight is 20/20. Julia Loffe nails it.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSNo2FPQDQw

Interesting. FRONTLINE is showing the interviews that led to "Putin's Road to War" documentary...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsfUiTJv2lE

Loffe is the best interview so far.

btw......If you block Putin's name out in the first 20 minutes of the first link and think US...........well....the forensic evidence is undeniable.

[Motor City]

Ya, i dunno, MC. So far, what's going on in Ukraine doesn't really smack of Prince and Blackwater.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(company)

Its exactly like that, its how blackwaters are born and grown. The cole bombing morphed them into a beast.

President Biden asks for $33 billion in additional Ukraine funds from Congress

A week after announcing $800 million in military assistance and $500 million in economic aid, President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass additional funding to support Ukraine.

Biden called on Congress to provide $33 billion in additional aid.

“The cost of this fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it to happen," Biden said in an address Thursday.

White House press secretary told reporters Wednesday that Biden will send a formal request to Congress by the end of the week. Psaki added that the funding would be enough to support Ukraine through the end of the year......

of all the money spent so far only have produced dead bodies and wrecked the environment

US State Department: $165 million in Warsaw Pact ammunition approved for sale

...The sale came at the request of Ukraine’s government and includes rounds for mortars, automatic grenade launchers and howitzers.....

American man killed while fighting in Ukraine

A 22-year-old American man has died while fighting in Ukraine.

CNN reports Willy Joseph Cancel was a former U.S. Marine.

Cancel had been fighting in Ukraine since March and was reportedly killed on Monday.

He was working with a private military contracting company and was getting paid while fighting in Ukraine, his mother told CNN......

[ap215]

The man who evacuated 200 people from Mariupol in a battered red van

KYIV (Reuters) - As Russian forces tightened their siege of Mariupol and missiles rained down, Mykhailo Puryshev drove into the city six times last month to evacuate its citizens, somehow surviving despite his red van being all but destroyed.

The 36-year-old Ukrainian, who once ran a nightclub in the city, said he evacuated more than 200 people on his six perilous trips and others began to join him in convoy into his hometown.

https://www.aol.com/news/man-evacuated- ... 17343.html

[ProfX]

900 Americans died fighting for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War in the 30s (pre actual beginning of or entry into WW II), in volunteer brigades like the Abraham Lincoln brigade.

Granted, they were not mercenaries, per se, like I believe the American young man recently killed in Ukraine, was. Nance is not there as a mercenary.

MHO: though the American government has been very quiet about it for good reason, I suspect "advisors" have been on the ground there thanks to the CIA probably prior to the invasion. You will never hear about them because you are not supposed to. We have already said we have been providing the Ukrainians intel since the beginning.

I have no problem with that. I agree the Ukrainian war is creating terrible environmental and human devastation. The power to end it tomorrow is in Vladimir Putin's hands. Zelensky could also surrender to the aggressor, but I don't think he should. Peace talks in good faith that reach an agreement for both sides would be best, but again IMHO Putin only seems to be giving lip service to them.

[Motor City]

900 Americans died fighting for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War in the 30s (pre actual beginning of or entry into WW II), in volunteer brigades like the Abraham Lincoln brigade.

Granted, they were not mercenaries, per se, like I believe the American young man recently killed in Ukraine, was. Nance is not there as a mercenary.

MHO: though the American government has been very quiet about it for good reason, I suspect "advisors" have been on the ground there thanks to the CIA probably prior to the invasion. You will never hear about them because you are not supposed to. We have already said we have been providing the Ukrainians intel since the beginning.

I have no problem with that. I agree the Ukrainian war is creating terrible environmental and human devastation. The power to end it tomorrow is in Vladimir Putin's hands. Zelensky could also surrender to the aggressor, but I don't think he should. Peace talks in good faith that reach an agreement for both sides would be best, but again IMHO Putin only seems to be giving lip service to them.

The consequences for growing contractors and the proliferation of deadly weapons are far reaching and future defining though. It means more idle money destabalizing American and other democracies, more environmental destruction and climate change and more dead bodies everywhere the weapons are used. more beasts like blackwater to commit more atrocities.