Russia is now bombing Ukraine

officials in warsaw considering invoking article 4

would be cool if russians went the fuck home

Henry Ford 1922

  On 1/13/2023 at 1:05 PM, rek said:

Henry Ford 1922

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was he already leaning towards antisemitism then? he became a known nazi sympathizer when they arrived on the scene.. hard not to think he's talking about "the jews controlling the world" in that news clipping.. since i think that was already a conspiracy theory then

oh lawd he comin'

  On 1/14/2023 at 5:51 PM, iococoi said:

oh lawd he comin'

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Hmm nah, he's bearly holding on.

julia ioffe is someone who was kind of embedded as a journalist among some russian elites for a while and she often has interesting insights, particularly on putin. here's a recent interview with her on the war

in the last 10 minutes she makes a few interesting points

• she thinks putin is more likely to use nukes as he grows weaker
• i'm not sure if she mispoke and meant to put an "if" clause in there, but she says she thinks he will use nukes on the battlefield
• she thinks the war is going to be over real soon.

so yeah there's a status update for you guys. 

there's really no mistaking the fact that ukraine is poised to kick the russians out. they're doing it and are growing stronger by the day while russia was weak already and is growing weaker. 2023 will not be uneventful in ukraine. russia has launched a big push, as ukraine is arming and hardening.

trying to deduce the scenario ioffe foresees, as she emotionally states that she thinks this will be over real soon: i think she anticipates some kind of desperate move that triggers nato

  On 1/28/2023 at 3:10 AM, ignatius said:

 

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Whats the point of those videos?

  On 2/11/2023 at 10:59 PM, Wunderbar said:

Whats the point of those videos?

 

essentially it's propaganda. the drones are apparently creating quite a problem for russian soldiers. there's countless videos of them dropping bombs and wounding/killing russian soldiers. i guess letting the world know and specifically russian soldiers that they have expanded this capability with suicide drones with heavier munitions for wider range of targets will be a bit of a downer for them to consider? idk. i find it interesting how the drones are being used. it's kinda crazy.

They need to stop installing opening windows in Russian high rise buildings.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/marina-yankina-russia-death-putin-b2283686.html?amp

Dunno if it’s been mentioned in this thread yet, but if not: Vladimir Sorokin’s “Day of the Oprichnik” is a good (and short!) read right now. It’s a satire of Russia in the future under Putin-like leadership, written in 2008 (iirc) and ridiculously prescient. Ridiculously vulgar, too, and probably a lot of the satire eludes you if you’re not Russian (be sure to look up what an Oprichnik is before you start, it’ll make more sense).

would putin prefer to go out with a bang? if he knows he is losing, would he prefer to be beaten by nato than ukraine? this would fit his narrative: that russia invaded because putin felt insecure about nato. he and his enablers like to scapegoat the west while fleecing the russian people and it works.

if the russian military offensive provokes nato, how would the international community handle it? there's no historical precedent for this scenario. modern weaponry makes the situation truly difficult to comprehend.

Don’t we have a couple Ukrainian watmmers? I remember a few posts from one of them from when everything was starting but I’m ashamed to admit I don’t remember their username. I tried searching but couldn’t find it. Just curious how things are going for them. 

Best of luck to them as they approach what might be the crucial stage.

It's fucking sick seeing how many red-brown tosspots cheer for russia online (and in spaces that, once upon a time, I would have thought of as pacifist) - solely because, just for once, it's not the yanks doing the dodgy imperial smash-and-grab - a concept which is antithetical to certain preconceived mindsets

  On 2/18/2023 at 7:42 PM, J3FF3R00 said:

Don’t we have a couple Ukrainian watmmers? I remember a few posts from one of them from when everything was starting but I’m ashamed to admit I don’t remember their username. I tried searching but couldn’t find it. Just curious how things are going for them. 

@maxwellsq was our watmm friend posting from eastern Ukraine toward the beginning of this thread... last visited yesterday... hope they're doing okay

yes , doing ok thanks. we were expecting russian offensive 2.0 but it seems they can't do it

  On 2/20/2023 at 8:07 AM, maxwellsq said:

yes , doing ok thanks. we were expecting russian offensive 2.0 but it seems they can't do it

dude if you don't mind telling us, how has this last year gone for you?? I think many of us would be interested to hear your perspective

i cant go into details because its an open forum , but overall , for me personally, first 2-3 weeks were the worst . almost everybody left , nothing worked etc

and I would like to thank all people who supported Ua all over the world, even just simple messages of support mattered , so Thank You

  On 2/22/2023 at 10:52 AM, maxwellsq said:

and I would like to thank all people who supported Ua all over the world, even just simple messages of support mattered , so Thank You

I know I'm just some wankstain on some forum but if shit goes sour again, the CUAET visa for Canada is still a thing for Ukrainians, you can have a spot on my couch. Last year I had a few families from Mariupol here, I can now shoot the shit in Surzhyk

good content

This guy did a handful of decent videos on the architecture of the Putin regime, the one below covers the ideologic underpinnings, which are full-on fascist.

There are other vids by him somewhere (I think?) about the structural, material underpinnings that incentivise the invasion, some of them being:

 - Russia and Ukraine's political developments have diverged massively since 1991, Russia being far more medieval hierarchical (perhaps matching Marx's "asiatic mode" with the economy entirely slaved to the needs of state power: oligarchs = boyars) with Ukraine retaining a far more politically active citizenry. The latter's existence (and corresponding russophone media environment) is a direct, existential threat to the Putin regime - Russians might think: look how these guys live next door, maybe we can have that here too?

- Oligarchs, whom the Russian political-economic architecture pits against eachother, seeing initial opportunities to "get ahead" of their rivals by snapping up Ukrainian assets first (oligarch-insigated asset-stripping is partly what drove the 2014 crusade to set up the "separatist republics" in Ukraine's industrial heartland - that plus genuine fascist nuttery)

- Strategic concerns around Ukrainian natural resources (oil, gas, iron & alloy metals especially - in Donbas, Poltava and Kryvbas) - capture them now to prevent them falling into "Europe-friendly" hands and thus being used to undermine Europe's dependence on Russian gas. Curiously, the old "Novorossiya" colonialist project lines up quite well with Ukraine's main natural resource areas

Thanks to all the refugees in my area I've got to know quite a few people from the infamous Donbas, and the picture they paint is pretty bloody scary. The supposed civil war/resistance that smoldered there for nearly a decade - they paint it as a massive astroturf job. Ultranationalist adventurers from Russia teaming up with local lumpen crims to help Russian oligarchs pilfer factory equipment back to Russia, and bump off any workers who complain about not being paid because all the money has been stolen. And this is all cheered on by western Stalin-fetishists

The thought that anyone, especially leftists, would actually defend this shit, such a fundamental betrayal of anything socialist - is gut punchingly horrifying