Octopus Overlords

Kraken wrote: ↑Sat Dec 17, 2022 4:06 pm “No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country."

Kurth wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 1:18 pm

Kraken wrote: ↑Sat Dec 17, 2022 4:06 pm “No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country."

I read this morning in the NYT that our NATO allies have credible intel that Putin is willing to accept 300,000 Russian casualties to win this war. His perspective: He believes Russia is much more willing to accept losses on this kind of scale than the West, and 300K is nothing compared to the 27M Russians killed in WW2.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 1:32 pm How many have they lost so far?

Kraken wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 3:24 pm

LordMortis wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 1:32 pm How many have they lost so far?

Approx. 100,000, which is about the same as Ukraine's losses.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 3:27 pm Russia has more grist for the mill. Or meat for the grinder.

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:14 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 3:27 pm Russia has more grist for the mill. Or meat for the grinder.

But it was the instigator of a land war in Asia!

Unagi wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 9:21 pm

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:14 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 3:27 pm Russia has more grist for the mill. Or meat for the grinder.

But it was the instigator of a land war in Asia!

Ukraine is not part of Asia.
Pretty sure it squarely falls into Europe, where in which someone has declared that to be, North of the Mediterranean and Black Sea and West of the Ural mountains.

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 9:33 pm

Unagi wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 9:21 pm

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 8:14 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Sun Dec 18, 2022 3:27 pm Russia has more grist for the mill. Or meat for the grinder.

But it was the instigator of a land war in Asia!

Ukraine is not part of Asia.
Pretty sure it squarely falls into Europe, where in which someone has declared that to be, North of the Mediterranean and Black Sea and West of the Ural mountains.

Depends on your definition and time period - per Herodotus era, Scythia (which contained Ukraine/Crimea) was definitely Central/Western "Asia"). So, if you want to be a "classic" blunder, you gotta go back into history

And, given that Europe isn't really a continent, and a lot of land wars there have been blunders...

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:40 pm He gave one hell of a speech tonight. I was ready to run through a wall for him by the end.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 1:48 am Fox had it live.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 10:26 am NBC also cut away before it ended, but that may have been a local decision, as it jumped to the local news.

malchior wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 7:40 am Ugh. Some hard-right pundits and GOP members of Congress actually complained about some idiotic notion that Zelensky showed disrespect by not wearing a suit to the White House or his address to Congress.

The Times identified the 234th Regiment, a paratrooper unit based in the city of Pskov in western Russia, as the main culprit in the Yablunska Street killings. Airborne units like this are considered some of the best trained and equipped in the Russian military. Evidence of the 234th’s involvement includes military equipment, uniform badges, radio chatter and packing slips on munition crates. Military experts from Janes and the Institute for the Study of War provided insights about Russian armored vehicles and their markings as well as tactical operations seen in the visual evidence.
Phone Records as Digital Fingerprints

Residents in Bucha said that when Russian soldiers interrogated them, they often seized their phones. Suspecting the soldiers may also have taken the phones of victims, our reporters obtained from Ukrainian authorities a database of all calls and messages placed from the Bucha region to Russia during March. As we interviewed victims’ relatives, we collected their phone numbers and checked if they were in the database. A chilling pattern emerged: soldiers routinely used the phones of victims to call home to Russia, often only hours after they were killed.

By analyzing the phone numbers dialed by Russian soldiers and uncovering social media profiles associated with their family members, The Times confirmed the identity of two dozen paratroopers as members of the 234th Regiment. In many cases, we interviewed their relatives and spoke to some of the soldiers themselves, two of whom confirmed they were in the 234th and served in Bucha. We cross-referenced our findings with personal data sourced from leaked and official Russian databases provided by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit group focused on global security.
Mothers, Fathers, Children: Ordinary Citizens as Victims

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Three days after the first Russian bombs struck Ukraine, Andrii Kuprash, the head of a village north of Kyiv, walked into a forest near his home and began to dig. He didn’t stop until he had carved out a shallow pit, big enough for a man like him. It was his just-in-case, a place to lie low if he needed.

He covered it with branches and went back home.

A week later, Kuprash got a call around 8 a.m. from an unknown number. A man speaking Russian asked if he was the village head. Something was amiss.

“No, you’ve got the wrong number,” Kuprash lied. “We will find you anyway,” the man responded. “It’s better to cooperate with us.’” Kuprash grabbed some camping kit and his warmest coat and headed for his hole in the woods.

Kuprash — and others The Associated Press spoke with — had been quietly warned that they were targets for advancing Russian forces. Word went round in circles of influential Ukrainians: Don’t sleep in your own home. Get rid of your phone. Get out of Ukraine.

The hunt was on.

In a deliberate, widespread campaign, Russian forces systematically targeted influential Ukrainians, nationally and locally, to neutralize resistance through detention, torture and executions, an Associated Press investigation has found. The strategy appears to violate the laws of war and could help build a case for genocide.

Russian troops hunted Ukrainians by name, using lists prepared with the help of their intelligence services. In the crosshairs were government officials, journalists, activists, veterans, religious leaders and lawyers.

Ukrainian lawmakers recently passed a bill that would ban hate speech and incitement based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The media regulation bill was unanimously approved on December 15.

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 4:47 pm Update on the Russian murder of civilians squads...

The Times identified the 234th Regiment, a paratrooper unit based in the city of Pskov in western Russia, as the main culprit in the Yablunska Street killings. [...]

A Russian sausage magnate and politician who briefly criticised Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has died after falling from the third-floor window of a luxury hotel in India.

Pavel Antov was a member of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party and a multi-millionaire, having founded one of Russia’s largest sausage makers.

He was reportedly on a trip to celebrate his upcoming 66th birthday when he was found lying in a pool of blood outside the Hotel Sai International in Rayagada, a district in the southern state of Odisha.

An unnamed police official told India’s NDTV news outlet they suspected he took his own life after becoming depressed about the death of his friend who was found dead in the same hotel.

Vladimir Bidenov was found lying unconscious in his room on the first floor of the hotel on Thursday surrounded by empty wine bottles.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Tue Dec 27, 2022 2:27 am Telegraphh

A Russian sausage magnate