Author Topic: Russia launches invasion of Ukraine (*) & use spoiler tags for anything graphic!  (Read 933925 times)

Offline Barrow Shaun

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Now our replies include one guy suggesting we give away the cat and travel around Europe doing 'hostels'.

We are not giving away our fucking cat, he's part of us.

We're not doing hostels either.

edit: Tomorrow, I'm going to register on some City and/or United forums to see if people can help. Please don't think bad of me.
« Last Edit: May 9, 2022, 09:12:31 pm by Barrow Shaun »
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Offline WhereAngelsPlay

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Now our replies include one guy suggesting we give away the cat and travel around Europe doing 'hostels'.

We are not giving away our fucking cat, he's part of us.

We're not doing hostels either.

edit: Tomorrow, I'm going to register on some City and/or United forums to see if people can help. Please don't think bad of me.

I know you've probably looked but there are loads on rightmove,some in Warrington that are below what you're willing to pay.
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Offline reddebs

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Now our replies include one guy suggesting we give away the cat and travel around Europe doing 'hostels'.

We are not giving away our fucking cat, he's part of us.

We're not doing hostels either.

edit: Tomorrow, I'm going to register on some City and/or United forums to see if people can help. Please don't think bad of me.

Best of luck Shaun and nobody will think bad of you for doing whatever's necessary to find yourselves a new home and some peace.

Offline Barrow Shaun

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Best of luck Shaun and nobody will think bad of you for doing whatever's necessary to find yourselves a new home and some peace.
Thanks.

Some peace would be special.
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Offline Red Beret

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I've got a friend who works at Liverpool council. I'm sure Shaun has already checked this information out, but I'll share the link anyway just in case something useful turns up.

https://liverpool.gov.uk/adult-social-care/our-liverpool-refugees-people-seeking-asylum-and-vulnerable-migrants/people-seeking-sanctuary-how-you-can-help/?fbclid=IwAR24vgMuEBufRUeSJG82I74S6JILGl5VJoG9XMPE5_aC_105s_Ljn6iRBmk
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Offline Yorkykopite

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Offline WhereAngelsPlay

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Russian heroes. It's important to remember, they are out there:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/09/russian-journalists-pro-kremlin-site-lenta-anti-war-articles

Takes serious guts to do that as there's now a strong possibility that they'll come into close contact with the sharp edge of a switch blade.
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Offline west_london_red

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Thanks.

Some peace would be special.

Sorry, this might a really stupid question but have you just tried the usual avenues like Zoopla, Right Move etc or am I missing something really obvious?
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Offline Mumm-Ra

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Sorry, this might a really stupid question but have you just tried the usual avenues like Zoopla, Right Move etc or am I missing something really obvious?

Thought the same. Just searched Liverpool and there’s loads.

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-rent/details/54108442/

Offline "21C or 70F?" SchizoidWeatherMan!

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Thanks.

Some peace would be special.

What are your preferences in terms of cities/towns?

What about Reading?  I am currently working abroad and will only be in the UK in September, but my wife is in London (near Camden) and I have a couple of relatives in Reading, so I can ask around for something within your budget.

My wife pays around 850 pcm, all inclusive for a studio apartment in a relatively affluent area (Belsize park), so I am sure you will be able to find something to your liking and within your budget.  I can ask her to find out if there are other studio apartments in her building of you are interested in London.


Phuk yoo

Offline AndyInVA

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Pretty interesting interview with seemingly down to earth French Canadian guy who is fighting in Ukraine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN2NdiFJFh0

Offline Barrow Shaun

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Cheers for the messages guys and yeah, tried those sites but they go quickly. So now we are thinking of hotel for a few days and sorting out some viewings once there.

Ok, no more hijacking of this thread from me, sorry. Any messages, please just pm me, thanks. (And cheers for the London shout but we definitely want north and Manchester-ish.)

Thank you all.

edit: A friend of a friend has very kindly agreed to let us stay at his house in Nottingham once in the UK while we get our heads together, find somewhere on rightmove or whatever and go to do viewings in person. All is good.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2022, 09:06:24 am by Barrow Shaun »
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Offline reddebs

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Cheers for the messages guys and yeah, tried those sites but they go quickly. So now we are thinking of hotel for a few days and sorting out some viewings once there.

Ok, no more hijacking of this thread from me, sorry. Any messages, please just pm me, thanks. (And cheers for the London shout but we definitely want north and Manchester-ish.)

Thank you all.

edit: A friend of a friend has very kindly agreed to let us stay at his house in Nottingham once in the UK while we get our heads together, find somewhere on rightmove or whatever and go to do viewings in person. All is good.

That's great news Shaun 👍

Offline 24/7

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edit: A friend of a friend has very kindly agreed to let us stay at his house in Nottingham once in the UK while we get our heads together, find somewhere on rightmove or whatever and go to do viewings in person. All is good.
You never hijacked the thread, as far as I am concerned. The situation directly affects you and impacts significantly on your life and your loved ones. Am happy to read you have some breathing space in Nottingham. Send us a pic of the three of you when you get there. YNWA.

Offline Elmo!

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Sorry I can't help you Shaun and I'm at the wrong end of the country, but hope you get it all sorted soon.

Offline Barrow Shaun

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Thank you folks. Hope to be back with a positive update as soon as constructive things happen.
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Offline Red Beret

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Cheers for the messages guys and yeah, tried those sites but they go quickly. So now we are thinking of hotel for a few days and sorting out some viewings once there.

Ok, no more hijacking of this thread from me, sorry. Any messages, please just pm me, thanks. (And cheers for the London shout but we definitely want north and Manchester-ish.)

Thank you all.

edit: A friend of a friend has very kindly agreed to let us stay at his house in Nottingham once in the UK while we get our heads together, find somewhere on rightmove or whatever and go to do viewings in person. All is good.

I'm really glad to hear this, Shaun. Just concentrate on getting to the UK and worry about the next step from there. All the best! :thumbup
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Offline Gerry Attrick

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Cheers for the messages guys and yeah, tried those sites but they go quickly. So now we are thinking of hotel for a few days and sorting out some viewings once there.

Ok, no more hijacking of this thread from me, sorry. Any messages, please just pm me, thanks. (And cheers for the London shout but we definitely want north and Manchester-ish.)

Thank you all.

edit: A friend of a friend has very kindly agreed to let us stay at his house in Nottingham once in the UK while we get our heads together, find somewhere on rightmove or whatever and go to do viewings in person. All is good.

You’re coming to live in the best city in the UK  :champ

Offline Bend It Like Aurelio

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The Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back to the border near Kharkiv, think the Ukrainians just announced they have retaken a 1200 km stretch of the border between it and Russia.

But they are still under significant pressure in the Donbas region in the east of the country. However, during the last few days saw a major Russian rout as they attempted a pontoon crossing across the Seversky Donets river near the town of Lyman.

For those that don’t know a pontoon crossing is basically a floating bridge constructed as a temporary roadway for vehicles to cross a river, usually built from prepared sections which are floated into position.

The number of Russian armour caught and routed on the opposite bank is at least 30-40, visually from released satellite photos shows at least 20, the number of casualties is unknown. Apparently, the Ukrainians allowed a number of vehicles to cross into an ambush before blowing up the bridge behind them. This is by all accounts the largest single confirmed loss of Russian armour since the Russians retreated from Kyiv.

Here is one of the photos from Oryx.

https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1524399801617592322?s=21&t=LT4Y6fObPK720DiO8DzM8w

Offline Qston

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Cheers for the messages guys and yeah, tried those sites but they go quickly. So now we are thinking of hotel for a few days and sorting out some viewings once there.

Ok, no more hijacking of this thread from me, sorry. Any messages, please just pm me, thanks. (And cheers for the London shout but we definitely want north and Manchester-ish.)

Thank you all.

edit: A friend of a friend has very kindly agreed to let us stay at his house in Nottingham once in the UK while we get our heads together, find somewhere on rightmove or whatever and go to do viewings in person. All is good.

Good news mate. Pleased to read that. Good luck with the further house hunting.
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Offline Lone Star Red

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Cheers for the messages guys and yeah, tried those sites but they go quickly. So now we are thinking of hotel for a few days and sorting out some viewings once there.

Ok, no more hijacking of this thread from me, sorry. Any messages, please just pm me, thanks. (And cheers for the London shout but we definitely want north and Manchester-ish.)

Thank you all.

edit: A friend of a friend has very kindly agreed to let us stay at his house in Nottingham once in the UK while we get our heads together, find somewhere on rightmove or whatever and go to do viewings in person. All is good.

You, of all people, owe apologies to no one.

Good luck!
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Offline Bend It Like Aurelio

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Cheers for the messages guys and yeah, tried those sites but they go quickly. So now we are thinking of hotel for a few days and sorting out some viewings once there.

Ok, no more hijacking of this thread from me, sorry. Any messages, please just pm me, thanks. (And cheers for the London shout but we definitely want north and Manchester-ish.)

Thank you all.

edit: A friend of a friend has very kindly agreed to let us stay at his house in Nottingham once in the UK while we get our heads together, find somewhere on rightmove or whatever and go to do viewings in person. All is good.

You are quite on topic my friend. Good to see you have settled for a place. And don’t ever give up the cat.

Offline 24/7

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Finland is joining NATO, it seems. Accelerated application likely to be submitted in days.

https://news.err.ee/1608594649/finland-to-apply-for-nato-membership-without-delay

Prior to invading Ukraine, Putin complained that Russia was being surrounded by NATO members. Remember the graphic I posted a few weeks ago, showing where on the map NATO borders Russia? The longest stretch of the main part of Russia is 294kms. Estonia. At just 3kms longer is Lithuania's border with the Kaliningrad enclave.

As a result of their aggression, Russia will shortly find itself with a NATO border of c1300kms when Finland joins.

Well done, Vlad, way to to deter the West! Glory to the motherland and all that crap......

Oh and the Estonian President just said this. "NATO is a defensive alliance. Moscow's attempts to portray NATO enlargement as offensive are just fruits of their own failure to live at peace with neighbours." Ouch.

Offline Libertine

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Finland is joining NATO, it seems. Accelerated application likely to be submitted in days.

Thoughts and prayers for all the far-right/left anti-NATO loons around Europe - Frottage, Stop the War, Le Pen, Melenchon, those gobshite Irish MEPs.....

Offline KillieRed

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This from Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (via The Guardian):

"I think that repentance is going to be very difficult for Vladimir Putin now. Nothing is impossible, I suppose, but I just cannot see for the life of me how we can renormalise relations with Putin now.

He has grossly violated human rights, international law. He’s guilty of absolutely barbaric onslaught on a totally innocent country. And to renormalise would be to make the mistake that we made in 2014 [following the annexing of Crimea].

And if the Ukrainians were to do any kind of deal with Putin now, the risk is that he would do exactly the same thing, and they know it. So the short answer is no. No renormalisation and the UK is very clear about that."


That might be the first thing he`s ever said that i agree with. I`m glad he seems to have being paying attention when reading Churchill at least. He`s very clear about it, dontchaknow.
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Offline 24/7

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Bloody hell, we really do live in interesting times when that utter cockwomble manages to string a sentence together that a) is concrete and concise in its substance, b) makes sense, c) hits the nail on the head and d) we can agree with  :o

Offline Red Beret

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Russian/Soviet sycophants like Putin never got over the fact that countries in NATO were there by choice and aligned interests, whereas countries within the Soviet sphere of influence never had a say in the matter.

The Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back to the border near Kharkiv, think the Ukrainians just announced they have retaken a 1200 km stretch of the border between it and Russia.

But they are still under significant pressure in the Donbas region in the east of the country. However, during the last few days saw a major Russian rout as they attempted a pontoon crossing across the Seversky Donets river near the town of Lyman.

For those that don’t know a pontoon crossing is basically a floating bridge constructed as a temporary roadway for vehicles to cross a river, usually built from prepared sections which are floated into position.

The number of Russian armour caught and routed on the opposite bank is at least 30-40, visually from released satellite photos shows at least 20, the number of casualties is unknown. Apparently, the Ukrainians allowed a number of vehicles to cross into an ambush before blowing up the bridge behind them. This is by all accounts the largest single confirmed loss of Russian armour since the Russians retreated from Kyiv.

Here is one of the photos from Oryx.

https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1524399801617592322?s=21&t=LT4Y6fObPK720DiO8DzM8w

I counted maybe eight armoured vehicles in that image alone. Assuming five occupants per unit (depending on type of vehicle, whether it had passengers etc), and an 80% mortality rate (and looking at the state of the vehicles I'd say that's being very generous), then you're looking at thirty casualties/fatalities minimum.

Doesn't sound like much, but if you consider that includes perhaps skilled drivers, gunners, commanders, maybe a medic or two, and possibly engineers, then it's potentially a lot of skilled troops who will prove very difficult to replace.
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Offline Nobby Reserve

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The Ukrainians have pushed the Russians back to the border near Kharkiv, think the Ukrainians just announced they have retaken a 1200 km stretch of the border between it and Russia.

But they are still under significant pressure in the Donbas region in the east of the country. However, during the last few days saw a major Russian rout as they attempted a pontoon crossing across the Seversky Donets river near the town of Lyman.

For those that don’t know a pontoon crossing is basically a floating bridge constructed as a temporary roadway for vehicles to cross a river, usually built from prepared sections which are floated into position.

The number of Russian armour caught and routed on the opposite bank is at least 30-40, visually from released satellite photos shows at least 20, the number of casualties is unknown. Apparently, the Ukrainians allowed a number of vehicles to cross into an ambush before blowing up the bridge behind them. This is by all accounts the largest single confirmed loss of Russian armour since the Russians retreated from Kyiv.

Here is one of the photos from Oryx.

https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1524399801617592322?s=21&t=LT4Y6fObPK720DiO8DzM8w


 :thumbup
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Offline Yorkykopite

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Finland is joining NATO, it seems. Accelerated application likely to be submitted in days.

https://news.err.ee/1608594649/finland-to-apply-for-nato-membership-without-delay

Prior to invading Ukraine, Putin complained that Russia was being surrounded by NATO members. Remember the graphic I posted a few weeks ago, showing where on the map NATO borders Russia? The longest stretch of the main part of Russia is 294kms. Estonia. At just 3kms longer is Lithuania's border with the Kaliningrad enclave.

As a result of their aggression, Russia will shortly find itself with a NATO border of c1300kms when Finland joins.

Well done, Vlad, way to to deter the West! Glory to the motherland and all that crap......

Oh and the Estonian President just said this. "NATO is a defensive alliance. Moscow's attempts to portray NATO enlargement as offensive are just fruits of their own failure to live at peace with neighbours." Ouch.


This is the richest irony of all.

In a free society with proper elections that self-inflicted failure ("we are going to war to create a buffer zone between us and NATO") would result in a catastrophic defeat for the ruling party.

Of course in the absence of both of those things we can only hope for the bullet to the back of Putin's neck instead. What a fun day that will be for us all - even though the hard work of transforming Russia into a civilised nation will still need to be done. 
"If you want the world to love you don't discuss Middle Eastern politics" Saul Bellow.

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Bloody hell, we really do live in interesting times when that utter cockwomble manages to string a sentence together that a) is concrete and concise in its substance, b) makes sense, c) hits the nail on the head and d) we can agree with  :o

Agreed. But will he carry it through into action? Will the sanctions of him and his oligarch chums continue, where once they and their money found safe haven in Londongrad?

Offline 24/7

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This is the richest irony of all.

In a free society with proper elections that self-inflicted failure ("we are going to war to create a buffer zone between us and NATO") would result in a catastrophic defeat for the ruling party.

Of course in the absence of both of those things we can only hope for the bullet to the back of Putin's neck instead. What a fun day that will be for us all - even though the hard work of transforming Russia into a civilised nation will still need to be done. 
Yup - and by the way the Finnish President just said this, "Joining Nato would not be against anyone. You caused this. Look in the mirror." Double ouch.

Offline killer-heels

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Great news regarding Finland. Wonder how long it takes the Russians to make their Nuclear war threat again. They are so full of shit.

Offline Libertine

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Great news regarding Finland. Wonder how long it takes the Russians to make their Nuclear war threat again. They are so full of shit.

Russia will be forced to respond to Finland’s decision to join the Nato alliance, its foreign ministry said in a statement. The statement said:

Finland joining Nato is a radical change in the country’s foreign policy. Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop threats to its national security arising.


Given the recent Russian military performance, I bet the Finns are bricking it.....

Offline KillieRed

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The Atlantic via MSN:


World War II Is All That Putin Has Left
Anne Applebaum  22 hrs ago


In Soviet films, on Soviet posters, in Soviet poetry and songs, the typical Red Army soldier was hale and hearty, simple and straightforward, untroubled by trauma or fear. He cheerfully marched all day, slept on the ground at night, never complained, and never even used swear words. When the British historian Catherine Merridale was collecting the lyrics of Red Army songs for her 2005 book, Ivan’s War, she ran into a wall: Even decades later, ethnographers and veterans could not or would not share with her any satirical, obscene, or subversive lyrics, because no one dared to repeat “disrespectful versions” of the sainted soldiers’ songs.

In the official accounts, the Red Army soldier did not brutalize civilians, rape women, or loot property either. Famously, a staged photograph of soldiers waving a Soviet flag on top of the Reichstag in May of 1945 had to be doctored, because one of them was wearing two wristwatches (they were stolen from Germans; Soviet soldiers typically did not own several wristwatches). Many years later, when another British historian, Antony Beevor, published archival evidence of looting—children as young as 12 traveled to Berlin for that purpose—and the mass rape of 2 million German women, the Russian ambassador to the U.K. accused him of “lies, slander, and blasphemy.”

But plenty of Russians already knew the truth. Stories of the horrors of the war, experienced by veterans as well as those who stayed at home, were passed down within families. Ambivalent memories persisted. Not long after the war ended, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, himself a former member of the Red Army battalions that had rampaged across the German region of East Prussia, composed a poem describing what he had witnessed:

The little daughter’s on the mattress,

Dead. How many have been on it

A platoon, a company perhaps?

A girl’s been turned into a woman,

A woman turned into a corpse.

Neither Solzhenitsyn nor Beevor nor Merridale described these things in order to minimize the heroism of the Soviet soldiers who fought Hitler’s armies from the depths of Russia all the way to the center of Berlin. The historical record of the damage the U.S.S.R. did to Central Europe in the postwar era does not negate the horrors that German soldiers inflicted on the citizens of the territories that they occupied earlier on. But that record does form part of the real story of the war, a story far more nuanced than the cartoon version of the Great Fatherland War that the Russians are now presented with every year during the May 9 victory parade.


That cartoon was on display once again this week. This year’s war commemoration even had a rote, empty quality, as if the Russian state is no longer capable of offering its citizens anything more than cardboard nostalgia—but also as if it assumes those citizens need little else. President Vladimir Putin made a short, dishonest speech about his invasion of Ukraine, just barely alluding to the costs and casualties. Soldiers waved Soviet flags. Spectators saw less military equipment than last year (and no air show at all), but tanks, trucks, and intercontinental ballistic missiles still paraded across Red Square. Mini celebrations unfolded around the country, at least one featuring Russian children singing, “Uncle Vova, we are with you”—Uncle Vova being Putin—followed by one-armed salutes. Even as Russia carries out a brutal war of aggression, one in which Russian soldiers are once again committing terrible crimes against a civilian population, the whole occasion was permeated with a sense of grievance, as if Russia were the only real victim of both conflicts.

[Anne Applebaum: Ukraine and the words that lead to mass murder]

This particular World War II cult was not inevitable; it is the result of a set of decisions, a deliberate effort to change the course of what had been an open conversation, starting in the late 1980s. In 1992, President Boris Yeltsin even informed Russians that the conflict did not begin, as their textbooks had long told them, on June 22, 1941, when Hitler’s Germany invaded the Soviet Union. In fact it began earlier, in September 1939, when Hitler’s Germany and the Soviet Union simultaneously invaded Poland. Yeltsin published the secret clauses of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed in August 1939, in which the two dictatorships divided Central Europe between them. He also handed the Polish government copies of the documents ordering the massacre of thousands of Polish officers near the Katyn Forest.

Gestures like that are now unimaginable in Putin’s Russia, where any discussion of the 22-month Soviet-Nazi alliance is not only difficult, but possibly illegal. In 2016, the Russian Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a blogger who reposted an article mentioning the alliance. In 2019, Putin himself launched a strange campaign to blame Poland, not the U.S.S.R. and Germany, for the start of the war, as if Poland had invaded itself. Myths about the war are now backed up by politicians, by judges, by the force of law. No nuance is allowed to creep into the official account of a war that was complicated, bloody, and often confusing for those who fought in it. But this simplification is necessary, because there just isn’t anything else to legitimize Putin’s regime, let alone its brand-new war.

In practice, Putinism is a powerful but ultimately empty ideology. Its propaganda divides people from one another, creates suspicion, and promotes apathy. State media put forth multiple nonsensical explanations for reality, including multiple nonsensical reasons for the invasion of Ukraine. In different tellings, Ukraine, a democratic state led by a Jewish president, is “Nazi,” is Russian, is a Western puppet, is nonexistent. Alongside these stories, Russians are spoon-fed cynicism, mockery, and nihilism. They are told endless tales about the glorious past, but given hardly anything to hope for in the terrifying future. They have no idea who or what could follow the Putin regime, or what that would mean for them. They support him because nothing else is on offer. But support does not translate into excitement. Neither he nor his war stories seem able to create enthusiasm for another Great Fatherland War.

Perhaps that was why Putin chose to mark May 9 perfunctorily. He did not, as some expected, declare victory in Ukraine. Nor did he call for an all-out mobilization. He did not issue a call to arms or speak at length about a glorious invasion either. Instead, he repeated, again, that the Russians had no choice but to launch their special military operation in Ukraine, as if some law of history had ordered it. He implied, again, that Russia is the real victim. He left out the true stories, the emotion, the evocative details that would actually inspire people to feel something, about either the old war or the new one.

If he wants to expand the current conflict—if he wants to persuade millions of people to sacrifice their lives and their fortunes to fight across Europe once again—he will need to provide a far more powerful motivation, a far deeper reason to fight, something other than this war’s alleged resemblance to a past tragedy. But he doesn’t have that kind of motivation to offer, or at least not yet.


https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/editorpicks/world-war-ii-is-all-that-putin-has-left/ar-AAX9UzZ?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=9c98127b2cd644ecadb2215349d86c62

I`ve bolded the bit that seems all the rage for politicians everywhere at the moment. You can definitely see it in the Trump/MAGA cult, Bozo`s NRG Tories, Bolsonaro, Modi, in Hungary, Turkey, etc. etc.

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Offline killer-heels

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Russia will be forced to respond to Finland’s decision to join the Nato alliance, its foreign ministry said in a statement. The statement said:

Finland joining Nato is a radical change in the country’s foreign policy. Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop threats to its national security arising.


Given the recent Russian military performance, I bet the Finns are bricking it.....

Ha, such utter shite from them.

Offline Lone Star Red

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Lol ok then.

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Russian media is talking about withdrawing recognition of Lithuania as a country

https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1524722899231379456
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Offline Yorkykopite

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The Atlantic via MSN:


World War II Is All That Putin Has Left
Anne Applebaum  22 hrs ago

Thanks for that. She's such a good writer.
"If you want the world to love you don't discuss Middle Eastern politics" Saul Bellow.

Offline rafathegaffa83

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That Finland NATO news is massive

Offline Mister Flip Flop

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For me the real worry about Russia isn't their armed forces it the fact an armed force so truly inept and pathetic has access to life on earth ending weapons.
Soccer - let's face it, its not really about a game of ball anymore is it?

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For me the real worry about Russia isn't their armed forces it the fact an armed force so truly inept and pathetic has access to life on earth ending weapons.

They'll probably accidentally blow up Moscow, then blame us for it.

Everton that.
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