Ukraine invasion by Russia Discussion and it's impact on Singapore and Asia? (compiled)

[7heaven]

1 hour ago, Steve5380 said:

 

Although the cost of the weapons given to Ukraine runs into the tens of billions,  it is peanuts compared to the giveaway of tax cuts Trump gave to the rich and powerful.

 

To stop Russia from their aggression, America would need to engage in nuclear war with Russia,  something we want to avoid at nearly all cost.   This is why American troops are not fighting in Ukraine,  but we jut give them weapons.

It is not just tens of billions, Biden has already given more than a hundred of billions of US tax payers monies be it aid, military help etc to Ukraine. These billions of aid will only increase the debts of US for future generations to pay off. 
 

And there is no end in sight despite Biden having already spent these hundred of billions. It shows that Biden is clueless on how to end this Ukraine conflict. 

[Guest Guest]

 Eye-opening. Some Americans do know after all that it was their government who blew up Nordstream, amongst other things.

[Steve5380]

3 hours ago, Guest Guest said:

 Eye-opening. Some Americans do know after all that it was their government who blew up Nordstream, amongst other things.

 

Eye opening?   Like everything that FOX News publishes, this video is pure bullshit.  It was humorous to see Trump criticizing his fellow republicans for the Iraq war.   Little did he know that a while later HE would be in the defendant seat accused of fraud related to a hush-money payment he made to a prostitute,  ha ha...

[Steve5380]

4 hours ago, 7heaven said:

It is not just tens of billions, Biden has already given more than a hundred of billions of US tax payers monies be it aid, military help etc to Ukraine. These billions of aid will only increase the debts of US for future generations to pay off. 
 

And there is no end in sight despite Biden having already spent these hundred of billions. It shows that Biden is clueless on how to end this Ukraine conflict. 

 

You are wrong.

 

The estimates of  US money spent on Ukraine is around 75 billion so far.  But Congress has approved much more, over a hundred billion.

 

And what is for sure is that YOU are clueless on how to end this Ukraine conflict.

[singalion]

 

Russian forces surrendering at fast pace to ‘save their lives’: Ukraine official

 

8 April 2023

 

Russian troops are surrendering at an increasing pace amid the war in Ukraine Ukraine, Ukraine's main directorate of intelligence noted. In a statement, Ukraine's defense ministry said that there has been a "sharp" increase in the number of Russian troops who want to surrender to “save their lives”. Some Russian soldiers are also being "captured directly" on the battlefield, the statement added.

 

 

Vitaliy Matvienko, spokesperson for the "I Want to Live" hotline, said that registered appeals for surrender from Russian soldiers doubled from last month to 3,000 appeals. The project is run by the coordinating headquarters for the treatement of prisoners of war along with Ukraine's defense ministry and the main directorate of intelligence.

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by singalion

[Why?]

6 hours ago, Steve5380 said:

The estimates of  US money spent on Ukraine is around 75 billion so far.  But Congress has approved much more, over a hundred billion.

 

And what is for sure is that YOU are clueless on how to end this Ukraine conflict.

It would be impolite not to reciprocate the US' generous gift of billions of dollars. Perhaps Moscow might return the favor by sending Houstan a massive Hiroshima mushroom?  The conflict will undoubtedly come to a magnificent peacerful conclusion.  

[singalion]

This topic is about Ukraine and not US.

 

Get back to the topic!

 

[Steve5380]

2 hours ago, singalion said:

This topic is about Ukraine and not US.

 

Get back to the topic!

 

 

Isn't a conversation about the money the US is giving to Ukraine...   about Ukraine?

[singalion]

There is a a USA thread to discuss internal US matters.

[singalion]

Does anyone give credit to this news?

 

Prior to the war in Ukraine, Putin was planning to attack Japan per leaked documents

 

 

Vladimir Putin Wanted To ‘Attack’ Japan, Before He Chose To Invade Ukraine – Claims Alleged FSB Whistleblower

 

Months before President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he was planning to attack Japan, according to an alleged letter from a whistleblower at Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). 

 

In March, an FSB agent, dubbed the ‘Wind of Change’ reportedly wrote a letter to Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian human-rights activist who runs the anti-corruption website Gulagu.net and now lives in exile in France after he was placed on a wanted list by the Russian government.

 

He is accused of leaking an enormous trove of documents, photos, and videos with hundreds of cases of rape and torture of inmates in Russian prisons directed by prison officials.

 

This FSB agent sends regular emails to Osechkin, detailing the anger and discontent inside the Russian security agency over the war in Ukraine started by President Putin on February 24.

 

 

In the letter, the whistleblower alleges that in August 2021, Russia was seriously preparing for a localized military conflict with Japan. He suggested that Russia instead chose to launch an invasion inside Ukraine months later.

 

“Confidence that the countries would enter the stage of acute confrontation and even war was high. Why Ukraine was chosen for war in the end [the scenario was not changed much] is for others to answer,” the whistleblower wrote.

 

 

 

 

 

[singalion]

 

 

 

Russian forces 'struggling to advance anywhere in Ukraine'

The pace of Russia's offensive has decreased and troops are struggling to advance anywhere in Ukraine, military analysts are reporting.

 

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says information from both Ukrainian and Russian sources backs up a theory that Moscow's offensive is "approaching culmination".

 

It referenced a report from Ivan Tymochko - head of the council of reservists for Ukraine's ground forces - who said Russia is focusing on dispersing Ukrainian troops in anticipation of a counteroffensive.

 

Mr Tymochko indicated Russian forces are not "making serious advances anywhere on the frontline" and said the pace of attacks around the fiercely contested town of Bakhmut has slowed slightly.

 

He also said the Russian offensive on Avdiivka in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region has "choked", and Vladimir Putin's troops still do not control the city of Marinka despite causing widespread destruction.

 

According to the ISW, a prominent Russian military blogger also claimed the pace of the Russian offensive along the frontline from Avdiivka to Donetsk city has dropped over the past day.

 

They emphasised "that Russian forces are struggling to advance anywhere in Ukraine", the ISW said.

 

Russian commentators are now shifting their focus away from discussing Moscow's offensive capabilities and are instead "assessing Ukraine's potential to regain significant ground", the thinktank added.

 

The ISW has also assessed that Russian forces are facing a shortage of shells on the frontline

 

 

 

[singalion]

The whole thing reminds me of someone else who committed suicide in his bunker somewhere in 1945...

 

How Putin blundered into Ukraine — then doubled down

The decision to invade was taken after consulting only a tiny circle. The Russian leader has since become even more isolated

 

FT February 23 2023

 

 

At about 1am on February 24 last year, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, received a troubling phone call.

 

After spending months building up a more than 100,000-strong invasion force on the border with Ukraine, Vladimir Putin had given the go-ahead to invade.

 

The decision caught Lavrov completely by surprise. Just days earlier, the Russian president had polled his security council for their opinions on recognising two separatist statelets in the Donbas, an industrial border region in Ukraine, at an excruciatingly awkward televised session — but had left them none the wiser about his true intentions.

 

Keeping Lavrov in the dark was not unusual for Putin, who tended to concentrate his foreign policy decision-making among a handful of close confidants, even when it undermined Russia’s diplomatic efforts.

 

On this occasion, the phone call made Lavrov one of the very few people who had any knowledge of the plan ahead of time. The Kremlin’s senior leadership all found out about the invasion only when they saw Putin declare a “special military operation” on television that morning.

 

 

Putin holds a meeting in the Kremlin with Sergei Lavrov Vladimir Putin meets in the Kremlin with Sergei Lavrov, his foreign minister who was among those the president appears not to have consulted before the initial invasion © Alexei Nikolsky/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images

 

 

Later that day, several dozen oligarchs gathered at the Kremlin for a meeting arranged only the day before, aware that the invasion would trigger western sanctions that could destroy their empires.

 

 

“Everyone was completely losing it,” says a person who attended the event. While they waited, one of the oligarchs spied Lavrov exiting another meeting and pressed him for an explanation about why Putin had decided to invade.

 

Lavrov had no answer: the officials he was there to see in the Kremlin had known less about it than he did.

 

Stunned, the oligarch asked Lavrov how Putin could have planned such an enormous invasion in such a tiny circle — so much so that most of the senior officials at the Kremlin, Russia’s economic cabinet and its business elite had not believed it was even possible.

 

“He has three advisers,” Lavrov replied, according to the oligarch. “Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great.”

 

Under Putin’s invasion plan, Russia’s troops were to seize Kyiv within a matter of days in a brilliant, comparatively bloodless blitzkrieg.

 

Instead, the war has proved to be a quagmire of historic proportions for Russia.

 

A year on, Putin’s invasion has claimed well over 200,000 dead and injured among Russia’s armed forces, according to US and European officials; depleted its stock of tanks, artillery and cruise missiles; and cut the country off from global financial markets and western supply chains.

 

Nor has the fighting in Ukraine brought Putin any closer to his vaguely defined goals of “demilitarising” and “de-Nazifying” Kyiv.

 

Though Russia now controls 17 per cent of Ukraine’s internationally recognised territory, it has abandoned half of the land it seized in the war’s early weeks — including a humiliating retreat from Kherson, the only provincial capital under its control, just weeks after Putin attempted to annex it.

 

But as the war rumbles on with no end in sight, Putin has given no indication he intends to back down on his war efforts. At his state-of-the-union address on Tuesday, Putin insisted the war was “about the very existence of our country” and said the west had forced him to invade Ukraine.

 

“They’re the ones who started the war. We are using force to stop it,” he said. Even as the huge cost of the invasion to Russia becomes apparent to him, Putin is more determined than ever to see it through, people who know him say.

 

 

Business representatives meet Putin at the Kremlin on February 24 last year, the day the Russian president ordered the invasion. Business representatives at the Kremlin on the day Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last year.

Many of Russia’s elite were in disbelief it could have been planned within such a small circle of people © EyePress via Reuters

 

 

“The idea was never for hundreds of thousands of people to die. It’s all gone horribly wrong,” a former senior Russian official says.

 

With the initial plan in tatters, Putin is searching for new rationales to justify the war effort, insisting he had no choice but to pursue the invasion by any means necessary, current and former officials say.

 

“He tells people close to him, ‘It turns out we were completely unprepared. The army is a mess. Our industry is a mess. But it’s good that we found out about it this way, rather than when Nato invades us,’” the former official adds.

 

The Financial Times spoke to six longtime Putin confidants as well as people involved in Russia’s war effort, and current and former senior officials in the west and Ukraine for this account of how Putin blundered his way into the invasion — then doubled down rather than admit his mistake.

 

All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The people who know Putin describe a leader who has become even more isolated since the start of the war.

 

“Stalin was a villain, but a good manager, because he couldn’t be lied to. But nobody can tell Putin the truth,” says one.

 

“People who don’t trust anyone start trusting a very small number of people who lie to them.”

 

‘If you don’t agree with it, you can leave’

 

Last year was not the first time Putin had withheld plans of an invasion from close advisers. When Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, he did not inform his own security council — instead on one occasion gaming out the peninsula’s annexation with his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and three top security officials all night until 7am. Initially, the advisers urged Putin against sending troops into Crimea, according to a former senior Russian official and a former senior US official.

 

“Putin said, ‘This is a historic moment. If you don’t agree with it, you can leave,’” the former Russian official recalls.

 

When the west, fearful of escalating tensions to a point of no return and jeopardising Europe’s economic ties with Russia, responded with only a slap on the wrist, Putin was convinced he had made the right decision, according to several people who know the president.

 

In the years after the 2014 invasion, Putin’s inner circle began to shrink further as he became increasingly consumed with what he saw as growing western threats to Russia’s security, the people say.

 

His isolation deepened when the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020: for fear they could infect a germaphobic Putin, even top officials were forced to spend weeks at a time quarantining for a personal audience.

 

One of the few people to spend extended time with Putin was his friend Yuri Kovalchuk, a former physicist who in the 1990s owned a dacha adjoining the future president’s in the countryside outside St Petersburg.

 

The secretive Kovalchuk — a banker and media mogul who the US says manages Putin’s personal finances — almost never speaks in public and did not reply to a request for comment.

 

People who know him say he shares a passion for Russian imperial revanchism with his older brother Mikhail, a physicist whose conspiracy theory-laden rants about US plans to develop super-soldiers and “ethnic weapons” have, on occasion, popped up later in Putin’s speeches.

 

 

Volodymyr Zelenskyy with Ukrainian troops in Bucha Volodymyr Zelenskyy with Ukrainian troops in Bucha, north-west of Kyiv. Putin became fixated on Ukraine after his relations soured with its energetic young president © Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images

 

 

During the height of the pandemic, Putin was largely cut off from comparatively liberal, western-minded confidants who had previously had his ear. Instead he spent the first few months in his residence at Valdai, a bucolic town on a lake in northern Russia, essentially on lockdown with the younger Kovalchuk, who inspired Putin to think of his historic mission to assert Russia’s greatness, much as Peter the Great had.

 

“He really believes all the stuff he says about sacrality and Peter the Great. He thinks he will be remembered like Peter,” a former senior official says.

 

Increasingly, Putin became fixated on Ukraine as his relations soured with its energetic young president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

 

One of Zelenskyy’s early moves was to curb the influence of Viktor Medvedchuk, a close friend of Putin’s who headed the largest opposition party in parliament.

 

Whereas former president Petro Poroshenko had used Medvedchuk as a crucial go-between with Moscow, Zelenskyy’s team sought other intermediaries in the belief that his influence on Putin had begun to wane.

 

But as Putin began drawing up plans for a possible invasion, Medvedchuk insisted that Ukrainians would greet Russia’s forces with open arms.

 

One part of the plan involved Viktor Yanukovych, a former president who has been in Russian exile since fleeing the 2014 revolution against him. He was to deliver a video message conferring legitimacy on Medvedchuk — and anointing him to rule Ukraine with Russia’s backing.

 

The vision was starkly at odds with political realities in Ukraine, where the pro-Russian minority that Medvedchuk represented was vastly outnumbered by those who despised him for his ties to Moscow.

 

But it proved seductive for Putin, who authorised payments through Medvedchuk’s party to pay off local collaborators.

 

 

Charts showing that Russia is to spend a third of it’s budget on defence and security

 

 

 

 

There was plenty of scepticism in Moscow. “If Medvedchuk says it’s raining, you need to look out of the window — it’ll be sunny,” says another former senior Russian official.

 

“You have polls, you have the secret services — how can you do anything serious based on what Medvedchuk says?”

 

However, his assessment was backed up by the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor agency to the KGB, which assured Putin victory was certain — and paid large sums in bribes to officials in Ukraine in the hope that this would guarantee success.

 

“The FSB had built a whole system of telling the boss what he wanted to hear.

 

There were huge budgets given out and corruption at every level,” a western intelligence official says.

 

“You tell the right story up top and you skim off a bit for yourself.”

 

Dissenting voices in the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, and Russia’s general staff attempted to raise doubts.

 

At the security council meeting three days before the invasion, even Nikolai Patrushev, security council secretary and Putin’s longest-standing and most hawkish ally, suggested giving diplomacy another chance.

 

“He knew what a bad state the army was in and told Putin as much,” a person close to the Kremlin says.

But just as he had in 2014, Putin overruled them, insisting he was better informed. “Putin was overconfident,” a former senior US official says.

 

“He knows better than his advisers just the way Hitler knew better than his generals.” The invasion began to unravel almost immediately after Putin set it into motion. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff, had drawn up a plan to seize the Hostomel airfield outside Kyiv, giving Russian elite paratrooper squadrons a platform from which to attack Zelenskyy’s government headquarters. Some of Medvedchuk’s collaborators worked as spotters for the advancing Russian forces, painting markings on buildings and highways to direct the invaders to key locations. Others joined in the attack on the government quarter. In southern Ukraine, they helped Russia capture a large swath of territory including Kherson with little to no resistance.

 

 

 

Viktor Medvedchuk, a close friend of Putin’s who led the largest opposition party in Ukraine’s parliament Viktor Medvedchuk, left, a friend of Putin’s who led the largest opposition party in Ukraine’s parliament, had insisted Ukrainians would greet Russia’s forces with open arms © Serhii Nuzhnenko/Reuters

 

 

 

Most of Medvedchuk’s network, however, simply took the money and ran, refusing to join in the invasion — or went straight to Ukrainian authorities and warned them of the instructions they had been given, according to a senior Ukrainian official and former US and Russian officials.

 

Prewar predictions that Ukraine’s army would collapse had largely been based on the assumption Russia’s air force would quickly establish control of Ukraine’s skies.

 

Instead, amid widespread disarray among the invaders, Russia’s army shot down a number of its own aircraft in the early days of the invasion.

 

As a result, it ran out of pilots with experience of combat operations involving ground forces who were also prepared to fly, according to two western officials and a Ukrainian official.

 

“It may not have been double digits, but it’s more than one or two” Russian aircraft shot down by friendly fire, says the former senior US official. There was a lot of fratricide.”

 

He adds: “They may not have had pilots with combat experience who were willing to fly over Ukraine and risk their necks in that crazy environment.”

 

Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence, adds: “It happened. From artillery units, from tanks, and we even saw it from our intercepts of their conversations. They shot down their own helicopters and they shot down their own planes.”

 

On the ground, Russia’s advances came at the price of huge casualties and did not help it capture any major cities apart from Kherson. By the end of March, the invading forces were in such a poor state that they withdrew from most of central and north-eastern Ukraine, which it portrayed as a “gesture of goodwill”.

 

The brilliant plan had proved a failure.

 

“Russia screwed up,” says Skibitsky.

 

“Gerasimov initially didn’t want to go in from all sides like he did. But the FSB and everyone else convinced him everyone was waiting for him to show up and there wouldn’t be any resistance.”

 

‘A unique war in world history’

 

As the consequences of his invasion became clear, Putin searched for a scapegoat to hold responsible for the intelligence blunders underpinning it. That person was Sergei Beseda, the head of the FSB’s fifth directorate, which is responsible for foreign operations and had laid the groundwork for the invasion by paying off Ukrainian collaborators, according to two western officials.

 

 

Initially, Beseda was placed under house arrest, according to the officials. His time in the doghouse, however, did not last long. Weeks later, US officials arrived for a meeting on bilateral issues with their Russian counterparts wondering, after news of Beseda’s detention leaked to the Russian media, whether he would turn up and how the Russians might explain where he was.

 

Instead, Beseda walked in and said, paraphrasing Mark Twain: “You know, the rumours of my demise are greatly exaggerated,” according to the former US official.

 

Beseda’s quick comeback demonstrated what advisers see as some of Putin’s biggest weaknesses. The Russian president prizes loyalty over competence; is obsessive about secrecy to a fault; and presides over a bureaucratic culture where his underlings tell him what he wants to hear, according to people who know him.

 

The steady drumbeat of propaganda around the war and Putin’s demands for loyalty from the elite have only increased the incentive for advisers to tell him what he wants to hear, the people say.

 

“He’s of sound mind. He’s reasonable. He’s not crazy. But nobody can be an expert on everything. They need to be honest with him and they are not,” another longtime Putin confidant says. “The management system is a huge problem. It creates big gaps in his knowledge and the quality of the information he gets is poor.”

 

For many in the elite, the stream of lies is a survival tactic: most of Putin’s presidential administration and economic cabinet have told friends they oppose the war but feel they are powerless to do anything about it. “It’s really a unique war in world history, when all the elite is against it,” says a former senior official.

 

A small number, including former climate special representative Anatoly Chubais, have quietly resigned. One former senior official who now heads a major state-run company went so far as to apply for an Israeli passport while still in his post, and started making plans to leave the country, according to two people close to him.

 

As the war continues to sputter, the scale of Russia’s miscalculation has begun to dawn on Putin, prompting him to seek out more information from people at lower levels, people who know him say. A cohort of ultranationalist bloggers who are critical of the military establishment have held at least two closed-door meetings with Putin since last summer; some were guests of honour at a ceremony to annex the four Ukrainian provinces in September.

 

 

Putin, centre, with his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, left, and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff Putin with his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, left, and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff. Gerasimov had initially drawn up a plan to seize an airfield near Kyiv, giving Russia a base from which to attack Zelenskyy © Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images

 

On occasion, Putin has used information from his informal channels to trip up senior officials in public. Last month, Denis Manturov, a deputy prime minister, told Putin the government had signed contracts with Russian aviation factories to produce new aircraft, one of the industries worst hit by the difficulty of procuring components under the sanctions. Putin replied: “I know the factories don’t have contracts, the directors told me. What are you playing the fool for? When will the contracts be ready? Here’s what I’m talking about: the factory directors say they don’t have contracts. And you’re telling me it’s all on paper.”

 

Putin’s newfound scepticism, however, is limited by his unwillingness to admit the invasion was a mistake in the first place, the people say. Some of the liberal officials who oppose the war have attempted to convince him to end it by pointing out the economic damage the sanctions are likely to wreak on Russia’s economy.

 

But Putin tells them “he has already factored in the discounts”, another former senior Russian official says. “He says, ‘We pay a huge price, I get it. We underestimated how difficult it could be.’ But how can you convince a crazy man? His brain will collapse if he realises it was a mistake,” the person adds. “He doesn’t trust anyone.”

 

Asked about the discrepancy between the defence ministry’s statements and complaints from fighters at the front about poor equipment in December, Putin paraphrased a character from his favourite TV show, the Soviet espionage drama Seventeen Moments of Spring: “You can’t trust anyone. Only me.” Then he chuckled.

 

Existential fight continues

 

Putin’s state-of-the-union address on Tuesday demonstrated his determination to “solve the tasks before us step by step” as he insisted Russia’s war would go on until a victorious end.

 

The remarks underscored how existential the fight has become for Putin as the threat he sees from a hostile west consumes him. Putin spent comparatively little time discussing Ukraine itself, instead focusing his ire on the US, which he accused of trying to “destroy” Russia and use “national traitors” to break it up.

 

The speech marked his first return to nuclear rhetoric since last autumn, when he made veiled warnings to “use all the means at our disposal” in defence of Russia’s conquests and suggested Russia could carry out a nuclear first strike.

 

Those threats worried western countries sufficiently that the US, UK, and France, Nato’s three nuclear powers, delivered a joint message to Russia vowing to retaliate with conventional weapons if Putin decided to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, according to the former US and Russian officials.

 

According to two people close to the Kremlin, Putin has already gamed out the possibility of using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine and has come to the conclusion that even a limited strike would do nothing to benefit Russia.

 

“He has no reason to press the button. What is the point of bombing Ukraine? You detonate a tactical nuke on Zaporizhzhia,” says a former Russian official, referring to the Ukrainian-held capital of a province Putin has claimed for Russia. “Everything is totally irradiated, you can’t go in there, and it’s supposedly Russia anyway, so what was the point?”

 

Instead, Putin said Russia would suspend its participation in New Start, the last remaining arms treaty with the US governing the countries’ nuclear arsenals. The suspension was the most concrete step Putin has taken on the escalation ladder since the war began: Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary-general, said “the whole arms control architecture has been dismantled.”

 

This time, however, Putin made no threats to actually use nuclear weapons — which analysts interpreted as a sign he had begun to realise Russia’s limitations.

 

“The war’s been going on for a year. Putin has been saying he’s fighting the west, not Ukraine, for a long time. You can’t just keep talking about it, you need to take steps to demonstrate something tangible,” says Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speechwriter. “Otherwise in his paradigm it’s going to look like the west is wiping the floor with Russia and [he] can’t say anything in response.”

 

Putin’s calculation, people close to the Kremlin say, is that Russia is more committed to the war than the west is to Ukraine, and resilient enough to see out the economic pain. Senior Republicans have openly questioned how long the US can go on supporting Ukraine to the same extent and the party retains a realistic chance of capturing the White House in 2024.

 

In ramping up military support for Ukraine, western officials are mindful anything less than a crushing defeat for Russia risks failing to deal with the problem.

 

“We need to ask ourselves: How do we want this to end up? Do we want to end up in a situation when Putin will survive and he will have more time?” says an EU foreign minister. “Something like the lull between the first and second world war.”

 

 

 

Putin at a concert for Russians involved in the military campaign in Ukraine Putin attends a concert at Luzhniki Stadium for Russians involved in the invasion of Ukraine. He has adopted mobilisation rhetoric, urging society to unite behind the invasion © Sputnik/Maksim Blinov/Kremlin via Reuters

 

 

Putin, by contrast, is betting that he can see through that strategic turbulence, people who know him say. Instead of insisting that most Russians are unaffected by the war, as the Kremlin did in its early months when life largely went on as normal, Putin has adopted mobilisation rhetoric, urging all of society to unite behind the invasion.

 

The scenes at a patriotic rally on Wednesday underscored how far Putin had come down that road in just a few years. At Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, where the World Cup final was held five years ago, a soldier rapped about “the difficult hour we did not anticipate” alongside Russia’s military choir and the parents of people killed fighting for Russia made speeches to a huge flag-waving crowd. The rally’s hosts welcomed a group of children “saved” by the Russian army in Mariupol, a city in south-eastern Ukraine it razed to the ground last spring.

 

Then Putin appeared, shook hands with a select group of soldiers, and told Russians to take inspiration from them. “The motherland is our family,” Putin said. “The people standing up here are deciding to defend the most valuable and dear thing they have — our family. They are fighting heroically, courageously, bravely.”

 

 

 

Russian independent media reported that tens of thousands of state employees and students were paid small sums or forced to attend. The fact the Kremlin evidently did not think it could fill a stadium to support Putin without forcing people to go suggests officials know how difficult mobilising society around the war will be.

 

“Even in his own mind, he realises it’s not going to happen soon. It’s going to be a costly, lengthy process,” the former US official says. “He’s got, he thinks, the time — he’s 70 — and the resources, the oil and gas money to achieve it. And that’s what he’ll be remembered for: gathering the Russian lands the way Peter the Great did.”

 

But the alternative, one former senior Kremlin official says, may be too difficult for Putin to contemplate.

 

“It’s scary to think what happens if this ends in a disastrous defeat for Russia,” the former official says. “That means disastrous mistakes were made and the man behind it needs to exit this life, whether it’s via a bullet, cyanide, or something else. And if there’s no justice in this world, then nobody gets to have it,” he adds.

 

“It’s like when two chess players are playing. One of them is losing and bashes the other one over the head with the chessboard. Does that mean he won? No, it’s just an act of desperation.”

 

 

 

[7heaven]

19 hours ago, Steve5380 said:

 

You are wrong.

 

The estimates of  US money spent on Ukraine is around 75 billion so far.  But Congress has approved much more, over a hundred billion.

 

And what is for sure is that YOU are clueless on how to end this Ukraine conflict.

It is still many many billions from US tax payers under Biden. And we are nowhere near the end of the Ukraine issue. 
 

What is for sure is Biden is clueless on how to end this Ukraine issue. 

[Steve5380]

7 minutes ago, 7heaven said:

It is still many many billions from US tax payers under Biden. And we are nowhere near the end of the Ukraine issue. 
 

What is for sure is Biden is clueless on how to end this Ukraine issue. 

 

Everybody is clueless on how and when the Russia-Ukraine conflict will end.  Maybe Putin is clueless too.  He must be afraid of the possibility of it ending by him being assassinated by his people.

[Why?]

12 hours ago, Steve5380 said:

 

Everybody is clueless on how and when the Russia-Ukraine conflict will end.  Maybe Putin is clueless too.  He must be afraid of the possibility of it ending by him being assassinated by his people.

Not possible.  Putin won more than 70% of Russian election vote, Biden won only 50.5% of American votes.  Who is most likely  in danger of being assassinated?

[Steve5380]

17 minutes ago, Why? said:

Not possible.  Putin won more than 70% of Russian election vote, Biden won only 50.5% of American votes.  Who is most likely  in danger of being assassinated?

 

During WWII, some generals tried to assassinate Hitler, but failed, so they were executed.  Maybe some high ranking officials close to Putin will have better luck, and do him in.

[Why?]

24 minutes ago, Steve5380 said:

 

During WWII, some generals tried to assassinate Hitler, but failed, so they were executed.  Maybe some high ranking officials close to Putin will have better luck, and do him in.

Be mindful of what you wished for. I agree that some high-ranking people wanted to get rid of Putin because they believed he was being too forgiving toward the United States and the Ukraine when Russia still has thousands of nuclear weapons that aren't being fully utilized.🤐

[Guest Guest]

Now that the facts of the leaked documents are revealed....it is quite apparent that the US and Ukraine have been engaged in fake news/ propaganda to deceive the sheep.

Perhaps those supporting the colonial policies of NATO and the US should begin believing in the tooth fairy or reincarnation.

[singalion]

 

 

3 hours ago, Why? said:

Not possible.  Putin won more than 70% of Russian election vote, Biden won only 50.5% of American votes.  Who is most likely  in danger of being assassinated?

 

Sure, Putin won in a free and fair election...

 

Comparing apples with oranges...

 

 

[singalion]

17 minutes ago, Guest Guest said:

Now that the facts of the leaked documents are revealed....it is quite apparent that the US and Ukraine have been engaged in fake news/ propaganda to deceive the sheep.

Perhaps those supporting the colonial policies of NATO and the US should begin believing in the tooth fairy or reincarnation.

 

It shows that Russia even at it's head loves the US much more than Putin...

 

Why should Russian government officers or commanders inform the US on such military secrets?

 

Quote from the leaks:

The documents also demonstrate what has long been understood but never publicly spelled out this precisely: The U.S. intelligence community has penetrated the Russian military and its commanders so deeply that it can warn Ukraine in advance of attacks and reliably assess the strengths and weaknesses of Russian forces.

A single page in the leaked trove reveals that the U.S. intelligence community knew the Russian Ministry of Defense had transmitted plans to strike Ukrainian troop positions in two locations on a certain date in February and that Russian military planners were preparing strikes on a dozen energy facilities and an equal number of bridges in Ukraine.

The documents reveal that U.S. intelligence agencies are also aware of internal planning by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.

 

 

Now we have to wait and see what Russian people at the head of Government will be hanged at the Kremlin, lose their jobs or what commanders will be removed...

It is so sad and cruel what is going to happen the next weeks in Russia, I wouldn't recommend anyone to put out the popcorn on the table.

 

 

 

 

[Why?]

6 hours ago, singalion said:

 

 

 

Sure, Putin won in a free and fair election...

 

Comparing apples with oranges...

 

 

Putin's votes are unquestionably more accurate than Joe Biden's manipulated digital ballots.  Joe Biden's legitimacy as president is still disputed by Donald Trump and I can't blame the latter for wanting to fight it out again, thru non digital balloting. 

[Steve5380]

9 hours ago, Why? said:

Be mindful of what you wished for. I agree that some high-ranking people wanted to get rid of Putin because they believed he was being too forgiving toward the United States and the Ukraine when Russia still has thousands of nuclear weapons that aren't being fully utilized.🤐

 

I read what you write,  and immediately translate into the opposite.  and then,  you are right!   

[Steve5380]

21 minutes ago, Why? said:

Putin's votes are unquestionably more accurate than Joe Biden's manipulated digital ballots.  Joe Biden's legitimacy as president is still disputed by Donald Trump and I can't blame the latter for wanting to fight it out again, thru non digital balloting. 

 

Again, I happily transpose everything you write into its opposite,  and then you are right!   

[Steve5380]

7 hours ago, Guest Guest said:

Now that the facts of the leaked documents are revealed....it is quite apparent that the US and Ukraine have been engaged in fake news/ propaganda to deceive the sheep.

Perhaps those supporting the colonial policies of NATO and the US should begin believing in the tooth fairy or reincarnation.

 

With you too...  I totally agree with the 180 degree inversion of everything you write!   Amazing how we coincide, I a terrestrial in the reality,  and you an extraterrestrial from an alternate mirror-image reality!   

[singalion]

1 hour ago, Why? said:

Putin's votes are unquestionably more accurate than Joe Biden's manipulated digital ballots.  Joe Biden's legitimacy as president is still disputed by Donald Trump and I can't blame the latter for wanting to fight it out again, thru non digital balloting. 

 

 

09/21/2021

Hundreds of voting violations reported

Political opponents have accused authorities of voter fraud. Jailed critic Alexei Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said: "This is truly unbelievable, I remember the feeling in 2011, when they stole the election. The same is happening right now."

Communist Party deputy leader Dmitry Novikov called for voting results in Moscow to be annulled. Results from the capital were published Monday afternoon, with results from other regions having come in on Sunday evening.

"We do not recognize the results of electronic voting in Moscow," Novikov said. 

 

[Guest Aiya]

1 hour ago, Steve5380 said:

 

I read what you write,  and immediately translate into the opposite.  and then,  you are right!   

 

1 hour ago, Steve5380 said:

 

Again, I happily transpose everything you write into its opposite,  and then you are right!   

U don't need to transpose anything. @Why?is always right in most cases against yours who offer subpar evidence or no evidence at all.

[singalion]

member "Why?" offering any evidence ?

 

Where?

 

I have never seen any evidence or supporting facts to his posts.

 

That Member "Why?" who I associate with some infamous Guest here just offers empty phrases with no substance.

 

If someone thinks copying certain posts from Russia Today or other Russian channels into BW is something worthwhile, then go ahead. But 99.99 BW readers easily identify the Russian propaganda that Member "Why?" posts here.

Just too obvious...

 

[Steve5380]

3 hours ago, Guest Aiya said:

 

U don't need to transpose anything. @Why?is always right in most cases against yours who offer subpar evidence or no evidence at all.

 

Thanks for the chuckle  

 

You want non-subpar evidence?   

 

You want evidence that Russia has become a terrorist state lead by a madman?   Look how it attacked unprovoked a small neighboring country and is doing its best to destroy it...  without being attacked in turn.  This info is all over the place.

 

You want evidence that China's PRC is planning to become a superpower to extend its totalitarian regime everywhere around?  Look at its plan to attack Taiwan, and how it is increasing at incredibly rate its military.  All this WITHOUT ANY NEED to do so.  It is driven by its pure evil force of dominance. 

 

And I agree that @Why? is perfectly right in his choice of the most provoking LIES here.  This is highly ridiculous for us who pursue the TRUTH,  ha ha.

[Why?]

5 hours ago, Steve5380 said:

You want evidence that Russia has become a terrorist state lead by a madman? 

You want evidence that China's PRC is planning to become a superpower to extend its totalitarian regime everywhere around? 

Still, no one can surpass America as the biggest shitshow on the international stage and it is determined to continue doing so, with no shame. 

[Steve5380]

1 hour ago, Why? said:

Still, no one can surpass America as the biggest shitshow on the international stage and it is determined to continue doing so, with no shame. 

 

The whole humanity is a big shit show.  The majority of it is kept underground.

 

But America has the peculiarity that much of the shit show appears on the open.  The GOP, the Trump MAGA movement, have released incredible amounts of shit.  But because of individual freedoms and freedom of the press,  all their defecations show up on the printed and cyber pages of publications, and are spoken about everywhere.  

 

IMAGINE if Russia, if China had the same freedoms as America!!!  The horrors this would reveal!  

 

So, I see no SHAME in the shit being shown openly in America.  It gives a good perspective on life,  and it is also self-limiting.

[Why?]

50 minutes ago, Steve5380 said:

 

The whole humanity is a big shit show.  The majority of it is kept underground.  So, I see no SHAME in the shit being shown openly in America.  It gives a good perspective on life,  and it is also self-limiting.

In contrast to America, which defecates everywhere and allows its digusting stench to permeate the entire planet, I have greater respect for individual country who shit only in their own backyards, quietly and with dignity and very civilised.

Edited April 12, 2023 by Why?

[Steve5380]

2 minutes ago, Why? said:

In contrast to America, which defecates everywhere and allows its digusting stench to permeate the entire planet, I have greater respect for individual country who shit only in their own backyards, quietly and with dignity.  This has nothing to do with wayward freedom, but civilised behaviours.

 

You have overseen an important detail:  individual countries who shit only quietly in their own backyards  ( what "dignity" is there in shitting ?? )  can shit limitless,  like a never ending diarrhea of evil that their people have to bear. 

 

Your opinion reveals that you approve the hiding of evil acts... so they can be done indefinitely and without punishment.

 

In contrast, the American way to reveal the defecations prevents individuals from doing it without limits, and sooner or later, allows them to be punished for their crimes.  Text book example:  what Trump may be facing... 

[singalion]

4 hours ago, Why? said:

Still, no one can surpass America as the biggest shitshow on the international stage and it is determined to continue doing so, with no shame. 

 

And Russia and China are innocent, correct?

 

 

[Steve5380]

8 hours ago, singalion said:

 

And Russia and China are innocent, correct?

 

 

 

YES!!   Of course Russia and China are totally innocent!  One does not hear of any internal struggles, criticisms, indictments coming from within these countries.  

[singalion]

1 hour ago, Steve5380 said:

 

YES!!   Of course Russia and China are totally innocent!  One does not hear of any internal struggles, criticisms, indictments coming from within these countries.  

 

What's with the political prisoners?

 

I assume they went on their own account and intention into jail...

 

Nawalny, Wang Quanzhang (王全璋), Xu Zhangrun (许章润), 

Andrei Pivovarov...

 

just to name a few...

 

 

[Guest Americunt]

8 hours ago, singalion said:

 

What's with the political prisoners?

 

I assume they went on their own account and intention into jail...

 

Nawalny, Wang Quanzhang (王全璋), Xu Zhangrun (许章润), 

Andrei Pivovarov...

 

just to name a few...

 

 

Politics prisoner, emotionally, physically and mentally is not unncommon in almost 99% of countries.  Singapore is non-exception.  Besides,  didn't Americans can't wait to see Trump in prison?  

Shitting with door closed?

[Steve5380]

9 hours ago, singalion said:

 

What's with the political prisoners?

 

I assume they went on their own account and intention into jail...

 

Nawalny, Wang Quanzhang (王全璋), Xu Zhangrun (许章润), 

Andrei Pivovarov...

 

just to name a few...

 

 

 

Surely!  Russia and China are such pacific countries that people who do political and civil misdeeds don't wait to be indicted,  they voluntary walk to jail and have themselves checked in,  sorry and remorseful for what they do wrong.

 

 

45 minutes ago, Guest Americunt said:

Politics prisoner, emotionally, physically and mentally is not unncommon in almost 99% of countries.  Singapore is non-exception.  Besides,  didn't Americans can't wait to see Trump in prison?  

Shitting with door closed?

 

You don't shit with door closed?  I do.

 

Yes,  we Americans cannot wait to see Trump in prison.  But Trump will not be a political prisoner, but instead a failed politician who is in jail for the crimes he committed while failing as politician.

[Why?]

1 hour ago, Steve5380 said:

 

But Trump will not be a political prisoner, but instead a failed politician who is in jail for the crimes he committed while failing as politician.

Yet, I did see that the politics of lies have mentally imprisoned you, putting you in the category of political prisoner.  Congratulations!!!

[Steve5380]

18 minutes ago, Why? said:

Yet, I did see that the politics of lies have mentally imprisoned you, putting you in the category of political prisoner.  Congratulations!!!

 

When did you see it?   And how can "the politics of lies"  imprison a free man like me?

 

On the contrary,  realizing that so many political statements are pure lies,  including yours,  frees me from giving them any consideration and simply discard them.   This is how I laugh at the lies in FOX News.

[singalion]

 

 

Looks like the Serbs don't even support the Putin war in Ukraine and send weapons to Ukraine...

 

Leaked US intelligence document suggests Serbia agreed to arm Ukraine

Classified Pentagon document seems to show Serbia has committed to sending lethal aid or has supplied it already

 

 

Wed 12 Apr 2023

 

 

Serbia, one of the most pro-Russian countries in Europe, has pledged to send arms to Ukraine or has done so already, according to a leaked secret Pentagon document.

 

The document shows that the overwhelming majority of European states are providing arms or training to Ukraine, but other documents in a trove of leaked defence department classified material demonstrate that Kyiv is struggling to get supplies from much of the rest of the world and is facing critical shortages.

 

One of the documents seen by the Guardian is a roundup of European positions on providing arms and training from early March, titled “Response to Ongoing Russia-Ukraine Conflict”. It gives the “assessed position” of each country with a tick or a cross.

 

Serbia is assessed to have “provided or committed to provide lethal aid”. It is also reported to have the “military ability” and the “political will” to provide arms in the future.

 

His government has voted against Russia several times at the UN general assembly over its invasion of Ukraine.

 

The Pentagon document about European contributions is marked “Secret/Noforn”, which means it is not to be shown to any foreign nationals, including allies. It shows that only two countries – Austria and Malta – have refused to provide lethal aid or military training, in the past or future.

 

=>

Putin seems to lose the support of previous countries friendly to Russia. Looks like now these countries are all falling out with Russia and Putin.

 

 

[singalion]

7 minutes ago, Steve5380 said:

 

When did you see it?   And how can "the politics of lies"  imprison a free man like me?

 

On the contrary,  realizing that so many political statements are pure lies,  including yours,  frees me from giving them any consideration and simply discard them.   This is how I laugh at the lies in FOX News.

 

Nowadays the golden rule is: Check what Fox publishes on their media and just believe the opposite. Then you know what is the truth...

 

Fox makes it very easy nowadays for people to know exactly who is right and what is the truth....

 

Interestingly, in the cold war, same was practised in the Communist Eastern European countries under the stronghold of the Soviet Union/ Russia.

 

 

Edited April 13, 2023 by singalion

[Why?]

10 minutes ago, singalion said:

Fox makes it very easy nowadays for people to know exactly who is right and what is the truth....

 

Fox news is trying to tell the Emperor that he has no cloth.  Unfortunately, the Emperor own eunuches (you know who they are) are trying to conceal the truth.  

[singalion]

As if any Western Democracy or the US have any "political" prisoners.

 

Can someone name one single political prisoner from the Western European countries, New Zealand, Australia, US or Canada?

[7heaven]

14 minutes ago, Why? said:

Fox news is trying to tell the Emperor that he has no cloth.  Unfortunately, the Emperor own eunuches (you know who they are) are trying to conceal the truth.  

Yes, the Emperor has many cronies who are working overtime pandering their own narratives and attacking those who are exposing the truths that embarrass the Emperor and contradict their narratives. 

[singalion]

I guess that what some of the trolls here call "truth" has the same quality as what is published daily on Fox Channels...

= lies...

 

 

Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 415 of the invasion

US arrests 21-year-old air national guardsman over Pentagon leaks; UN nuclear chief warns of ‘living on borrowed time’ after recent explosions near Zaporizhzhia plant

 

• Ukraine’s armed forces have said Russian troops are attempting to surround the embattled city of Bakhmut from the north and the south. “Every day in Bakhmut area, the enemy makes 40 to 50 offensive and assault attempts, launches more than 500 strikes using the entire range of available weapons,” said Brig Gen Oleksiy Hromov, deputy chief of the Ukrainian armed forces general staff’s main operational department.

• Russia’s defence ministry claimed its troops had already surrounded Bakhmut, but Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, said it was “too early” to say. Prigozhin, whose forces have spearheaded much of the fighting for the embattled city, was responding to a statement by the Russian defence ministry that said Moscow’s forces were “blocking” Ukrainian forces from getting in or out of Bakhmut.

 

 

What is it now?

Ha ha.

 

But it is surprising that the Wagner boss dares to contradict the Russian Defence minister, shows that there is conflict.

 

 

 

[Guest Guest]

On 4/13/2023 at 12:25 PM, singalion said:

As if any Western Democracy or the US have any "political" prisoners.

 

Can someone name one single political prisoner from the Western European countries, New Zealand, Australia, US or Canada?

The Australian citizen held captive in Australia on trumped up charges of teaching Chinese pilots how to fly. Lol

 

Also how about Julian Assange...held prisoner in UK for many years on behalf of the CIA.

 

The Chinese business woman held captive in Canada

The list goes on

[singalion]

 

 

The question was referring to political prisoners! political (= due to their political views or express opposition to political matters)

 

Damn difficult for you to grasp, n'est pas?

 

All stated in that post are not what you consider as political prisoners.

 

 

A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity.

"individuals have been sanctioned by legal systems and imprisoned by political regimes not for their violation of codified laws but for their thoughts and ideas that have fundamentally challenged existing power relations".

 

[Guest Guest]

Your ideas of political imprisonment are different to mainstream thinking / intelligent people.

There is not much difference in a cut snake and yourself......Both mad as !

[singalion]

The definition is well accepted and recognised. 

 

Even Amnesty International follows this standard. 

 

A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity.

"individuals have been sanctioned by legal systems and imprisoned by political regimes not for their violation of codified laws but for their thoughts and ideas that have fundamentally challenged existing power relations".

 

Amnesty International considers a Prisoner of Conscience (POC) to be any person imprisoned or otherwise physically restricted (like house arrest), solely because of his/her political, religious or other conscientiously held beliefs, their ethnic origin, sex, color, language, national or social origin, economic status.

 

 

Your stated cases did not fall into any of above categories. 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by singalion

[Steve5380]

On 4/15/2023 at 1:29 AM, Guest Guest said:

Your ideas of political imprisonment are different to mainstream thinking / intelligent people.

There is not much difference in a cut snake and yourself......Both mad as !

 

At least @singalion HAS ideas.   You stopped having ideas when,  you behaving like a snake,  someone cut off your head!