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Well, ol' Vlad has finally decided he's going for a domination win and launched an attack deployed a peace keeping force on Ukraine.

I don't think we have any major CYStians in the Ukraine (or Russia) right now, but if we do, be sure to give us full updates on the frontlines of WW3 when you're not busy dodging bullets and/or committing war crimes.

Just saw this too. I guess time to see if the rest of the world continues with their sanction policy, and allows Vlad to Iimpale Ukraine, or if the rest of the world will do something. 

Looks like Ground Zero might turn out to be prophetic.

At this point, the Simpsons could predict the apocalypse and I'd believe it. They are the modern day Nostradamus as far as I'm concerned haha.

It's already been said, but Ukraine really should've realized nobody was going to be willing to start WWIII on their behalf. And if they wanted to do it themselves, they should've held onto their nukes.

Unfortunately, it's even worse than that I'd say. I'd call this a bit of a putin gambit; If the west, more specifically, the United States were to actually put war on the table, Russia would almost certainly back off. As a US citizen with a bias towards our sphere of influence, it's going to look terrible if we allow Russia to continue their expansion. None of our allies will take us seriously, and we lose a lot of leverage in more third world areas, where countries are going to see our unwillingness to defend a democracy as a bad sign.

Nah I think the real takeaway here is that if you have 3000 nukes, don't get rid of them. Particularly if you share a border with Russia and aren't even in NATO.

Well to be fair, having a nuclear arsenal was never a win situation for Ukraine. Deploying said weapons against russia would undoubtedly set off a chain reaction that ends the world. Plus, dismantling their nuclear bombs allowed them to join the NPT, and was part of the conditions of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.

Obviously hindsight is 20/20, maybe if they had kept their nukes they wouldn't be getting invaded now, maybe If they had, they'd be even easier claim for Russia to seize, as the BMSA was basically an agreement enforced by Russia, the US, and the UK.

I personally don't think they would have been around for this long if they had kept the nukes

And yet having nukes seems to have been doing wonders for protecting Russia for decades, without them ever even needing to use one.

Well, despite Russia's inadequicies, they do have a modern military, the biggest modern military in europe, you'd need a few european nations going in on war to do anything. Keep in mind that, though I could be wrong, the EU wouldn't hols itself obligated to help other EU countries if they started an offensive war against another power.

Russia's military is outdated and Russian soldiers are largely bum-ass gopniks. They have a large military, but it's not extremely modern and could be easily crushed by NATO. The issue is that Putin threatened to use nukes like a child throwing a temper tantrum on a playground, so that's where the problem lies.

I wasn't comparing the logistics of a modern war, I should have made that clear. I'm talking about the possibility that, back when Ukraine had a large nuclear arsenal, Russia could very well have used any refusal from them to give that up as justification for a fast invasion. Also, maybe i just haven't seen it, but has Russia legitimately threatened to use nuclear arms in this Ukraine crisis??

Yes, Putin has explicitly said so as verified by every other news channel..  And while the Russian nuclear arsenal can be gauged and countered alone, its existing relationship with China (the nation that has proven to be strides ahead of most other countries in terms of supersonic ICBMs) means that China could launch its own nukes as a cover for Russian expansion.  China has purchased 100 million tonnes of Russian coal, agreed to build a natural gas pipeline between the two nations, and tested Taiwan's airspace as a means to anchor the US's navy (which is the USA's strongest military asset) to the Pacific.  China has also agreed to sell large quantities of wheat to offset any NATO sanctions, whereas the US has not yet reneged on its purchases for Russian oil and sales of produce to China.  So for all intents and purposes, China is sponsoring Russia and covering their ass for it.  Ukraine is an acceptable trade casualty if China can just outsource its imports from South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia (all regions that the Western hemisphere have only minor trade agreements with, but China has massive investments and minor military presence in).

As great as the US is alone, it would have its hands full with solely Russia or China.  The two Eastern-Hemisphere nations working in concert guarantees security in Russia's Far East as far as nuclear warfare is concerned.

sperg

Insofar as Ukraine keeping its arsenal, things would likely play out the same as they would today, minus the very real possibility that Ukraine wouldn't hesitate to send a few nukes over if it ever found itself alone.  Yes, starting a nuclear war looks bad, but if the very existence of the country is at stake, any desperate nation would try to do the most extreme thing to catch the world's attention.

You literally can't stop yourself.

Yes and I said this two days ago in the discord when it happened:

Putin has correctly intuited that no one is going to want to start WWIII over fucking Ukraine.

And it still is holding up as a tldr.

I'm not trying to stop anyone from having a serious political discussion, but really no one but Swift is going to be autistic enough to really get into this. Most of the world is supportive of Ukraine without being willing to actually support them, and unless you are Joe Biden (who is nowhere near based enough to post here) opinions about what the US should or shouldn't do isn't accomplishing anything. Unless you're strapping yourself to a homemade missile aimed at Moscow as we speak you literally might as well be ignoring it all to play Roblox for all the difference you're making to anyone actually involved with this stuff.

We don't tend to do the 'thoughts and prayers' empty gesturing here, and except for maybe some speculation or detailed breakdowns of stuff from nerds like @Swiftstryker or @Digit who I know are paying close attention but barely remember there's a writing site associated with the server, I don't expect this thread will go very far. But it's here I suppose if anyone does feel a pressing need to publicly state the controversial opinion that Russia is bad.

I'm glad Alex made a site inspired by the discord, this place looks cool.

This is true of China, which has nearly 2 billion mouths, soft power over its neighbors, and diplomatic leverage to justify the expansion. Russia has an economy the size of Texas, and has no interest prolonging its engagements unless it wants to get into debt with a large small number of vulnerable nations funneling resources towards it.  Even if it were to put the full strength of its forces towards the West and South, touching even a smidge of Romania (a NATO member) puts many a target on its large back.  Not to mention, Russia is guaranteed to give up something for the new gas pipeline China is funneling towards it.  As much as those two countries are allied against the West, relations between the former communist blocs aren't exactly positive.  Russia definitely does not have the resources to spare for the incoming winter either, so a long-term occupation can be potentially disastrous if the remaining Ukrainians decide to adopt an insurgency.  There's no need, therefore, to escalate the fighting unless China jumps the gun on Taiwan (at which point, we have too many obligations to back out of and the potential loss of the TSMC would effectively cripple computing technology; Ukraine has no such leverage in its favor).

Although I would've rather that Biden stationed troops in Poland during the Olympics as a means of deterrence, the second-best time to do so is now.  A full-out war that no civilian nor soldier wants to get into (considering that there is no outright cassus belli to make) is only going to be misery for all sides, and the last thing you want for any era is to have political instability in major world powers.  That's a great recipe for setting back the human clock for decades, if not centuries.

Can't wait for the UN and NATO to do their usual finger wagging. We might even get some sanctions, and a strongly worded letter!

If you are in Ukraine right now, I do hope you are safe and well. For those of you unaware, Russia has expanded it's invasion.

As somebody in russia, I hope they're unsafe and unwell. This is what Ukraine gets after invading us for all those years

Wishing so hard now that TurnipBandit was still in good graces and still elaborately pretending to be an IRL Russian soldier.

We used to have another guy around here that claimed he was of Russian descent living here and in the military. He's been gone for years though.

Only other "Russian" we got is Wizzy, and he's too busy fighting the war with his parents convincing them he's not gay. (He's losing)

From all the complaining I'm seeing it just seems like everybody once again is expecting to lie around passively and wait for the US to do something. And yet the only people left here not afraid of guns are deathly afraid of vaccines instead and don't recognize Biden as President.

This is assuming they can first even find the gun they lost six years ago somewhere amid their sweaty infected stomach folds, along with the TV remote, half a cheeseburger and the third wife's favorite chihuahua.

Maybe other countries should start looking elsewhere for white knights, I hear those are considered problematic now anyway.

(I edited the sweaty stomach folds thing in solely for the benefit of those of you who might be eating breakfast while reading, yw.)

Oh, so this is funny. I just heard that Pornhub put in place "sanctions" of its own and is literally cockblocking Russian users with a Ukranian flag.

I mean that's probably just hurting the gay Russians that are using it as an "outlet" more due to having to be secret about it all.

The regular Russians probably are just going to their usual underage whore houses or if they're currently in the military, just partaking in the Ukrainian ladies.

Getting a jump on the war crimes count early.

Still surprised the guy lived though, so I guess it's just a misdemeanor.

Look, in his defense, the only training Russia could afford for the tank drivers were some pirated GTA games.

I hope Russia doesn't become the Soviet Union again. I can't really say much but all I have to say is that I hope WWIII doesn't start in a few months. 

I'm going to give the unpopular opinion that Russia is fully justified in invading Ukraine. Western Ukrainians overthrew the democratically elected pro-Russian government in the Euromaidan coup, replacing it with a pro-NATO government that posed a massive security threat to Russia. When Cubans overthrew their government in a Communist revolution, the US had no qualms about invading a sovereign nation in the Bay of Pigs incident, though obviously that ended in disaster. If Mexico were to suddenly join the CSTO tomorrow for whatever reason, I have no doubt that American tanks would be rolling towards Mexico City.

No, I will not defend my opinion since I have enough experience to know that arguing about something like this would be a massive waste of time. I'm just putting out a countervailing argument so that people can see there is one.

Nerd

I respect your opinion and the balls to put it forward, but also fuck you, the invasion is unjustifiable.

So amusingly it seems the internet is coming together now to fund anti-Russian terrorists freedom fighters. If you've got 1 or 2k to spare, you too can help make a redditor die in a foreign land.

Also there's some Syrian fighters who have been doing this for years (killing Russians, not redditors) trying to get over to where the new party is happening, best of luck to those guys. Ukraine is doing pretty well for itself and the rest of the world is going to be really embarrassed if they manage to hold out with zero help beyond the massive amounts of javelins we apparently slipped them under the table.

Man, if Trump had just been able to keep himself off Twitter, he could be living out his lifelong fantasy of nuking another country right now. Biden's tiny shriveled old man balls just don't seem to be up to ending humanity that way, shame.

lmao imagine the name of this thread if nukes did start dropping and everyone started launching, i'm sure there's an alternate reality where were hoping the brits got hit first

 

Something about whether or not the actual Russian troops anticipated entering Ukraine in a serious conflict (they didn't). And knowing that a South-Korea-like draft happens with every Russian male once, basically everyone who drew the short end of the stick ended up getting into this war. Pretty tragic considering some of these guys were burned alive by molotov showers, shot down in their helicopters, planes, and APCs, or just straight up killed in a gunfight.

Ideally someone will just shoot Putin in the head and call all these kids back home.

Russian banks are starting to be banned from the Swift international payment system and apparently there's reports of the Kremlin website being targeted by cyber attacks.

Russian forces just blew up some major gas pipeline, but they really are facing heavier resistance than they thought. Lol.

Looks like Putin put his nuclear deterrent forces on high alert.

There are some reports that his inner circle are starting to criticize his actions, but who can know with that one.

Talks didn't seem to go well. Russia's economy is tanking more than their invasion. They're supposed to be putting nukes in their puppet Belarus' territory too.

TL;DR - Yeah, they're still fighting.

Also, the REAL victims of this terrible war...

 

Somebody please think of the E-thots!

I hope the fast food chains are the next to go, no mcrib for them motherfuckers!

From porn to fast food?

it'll be known as the russo-ukrainian pipeline

Elon Musk is apparently keeping Ukraine's internet from being shut off with his StarLink space program tech. I am actually stunned he has been able to do something practical to help people who live on this planet.

Good news all, the war is over! Some random actress no one has heard of has kindly offered up her perky tits for Putin to suckle on as a peace offering. Turns out all we need is love after all. ^_^

Oh yeah, I stumbled across this cringy ass bitch. This must have taken like at least several hours to make, I'm not sure how during that time she didn't actually realise that this was not in the wisest of her decisions.

Yeah, maybe actually have a couple of children first before you make a viral video talking about how your parenting skills are so on point that they could literally end wars.

I could tell it was going to be cringe just from looking at her face. Didn't even need a summary, certainly don't need to click.

She also has terrible flow. This shit is borderline incomprehensible.

Away shy.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/02/joe-biden-makes-embarrassing-gaffe-saying-putin-will-never-win/

 

In case anyone was wondering how Iranians are feeling about the conflict, Biden was kind enough to tell us all that they'll be staying strong

So far it just looks like HC is the pro-Russian supporter, I thought he was Dutch though. Could be mistaking him for another member probably (Darius maybe) 

However, because WE continue to be the sole beacon of free speech, HelpfulCommie is allowed his views without the fear of going to the gulags for 1000 years! (Unlike other less free IF sites)

Anyway, supposed to be a second round of talks involving China as some sort of mediator for peace. I imagine China is going to use this opportunity to try to gain some sort of political points by trying to use leverage over Russia to get them to back down. Not sure if that would work though since Putin's libel to just threaten them with nukes as well.

Speaking of lobbing explosives, Putin's using cluster bombs now, so it's just indiscriminate bombing and everyone's a target. Strategy has been abandoned in favor of maximum carnage. Go big or go home.

Meanwhile Ukrainians are making the captured Russian soldiers call their moms and tell them why they're invading. No seriously, most of these are brainwashed snot nosed kids. When they've been asked what they're doing there, almost all of them have answered with "I don't know." (Much like some little kid would when they know they're in trouble)

Russia's incompetence in this war has really make me reconsider the little bit i knew about warfare, and how critical morale is; this should have been a steamroll without direct troop intervention from other powers. I imagine these russian kids aren't defecting because they're too scared shitless to consider it

I am most certainly not Dutch. I'm American. I do appreciate this little bastion of free speech. As for cluster bombs, the US dropped 13,000 of those in Iraq including in residential areas, but no one made a fuss about it back then, and it continues to export them to foreign countries even to this day.

Nobody cares about bombing brown third worlders. We do that all the time.

The last time white people got mass bombed though was WW2, so this is a special occasion!

Actually, the last time that happened was during the Yugoslav Wars, which arguably has some similarities to the current conflict. NATO claims that it bombed Serbia because it was committing genocide against ethnic minorities. Russia also claims that Ukraine is committing genocide against Russians in Donbass.

Nobody gives a shit about Balkan third worlders getting bombed either.

Though speaking of the Serbs, apparently there was rally there that was supporting Russia. Heard there was some friction going on in that whole ex-Yugoslavia area a few weeks before all this Ukraine-Russia thing blew up.

I'm sort of wondering if the Serbs and Croats/Bosniaks will take this opportunity to start beating each other over the head again seeing as times are in their "interesting" phase currently.

Serbs and Ukrainians are both Slavic peoples, so personally I don't see why I should care about the latter getting bombed anymore than the former.

:(

As a Serb third worlder that was bombed, I fully support Russia in this. Not so much cause I think that they're morally (or in any way) justified, but simply because anything that helps Russia and makes America worse is a win in my book.

And basically literally everyone I know fully support Russia. Only the faggot feminists don't. Just my 2 cents on this subject.

Clearly not bombed enough then

Can someone run this motherfucker over again?

I fucking love these forums lmao.

My favorite thing about Russia is definitely the way it makes life worse for Russians.

I don't think I've ever really noticed or thought about Serbia much though tbh, so no insights there.


edit: oh hang on, I think there was a GTA character who was supposed to be Serbian? Cool, congrats!

... Pretty sure Russia is taking a bigger blow from all of this than America. From what I've seen, America's reaction is pretty much:

 

Point up.

America is basically a perfect country though.

The difference being that the Serbs were actually committing genocide while Russia is lying 

Lots of what the US did over there was genuinely, inexcusably evil, the difference in public opinion is whether they're white, living in a relateable normal/modern way, and whether it shows up on TikTok or not.

People are easily distracted, misdirected and frequently too stupid to even consider whether there's a man behind the curtain, but most can't switch off basic human empathy when directly confronted with a situation like that. You automatically place yourself or people you care about in the role of the relateable victim. It's such a powerful impulse that it's pretty much the entire reason fiction can have an emotional affect, we can't turn it off even when we know the thing we're reacting to isn't real.

And speaking of fiction, browsing reddit here and there it's kind of interesting to see that even the most out of touch, screen-raised inhuman spergazoid is able to feel that something ain't right when it's not a bunch of irrelevant sandy assholes they're only vaguely aware of getting invaded and bombed this time, but 'normal' people making movies and games that they DO connect with and process emotionally in ways their stunted manbaby upbringing might otherwise interfere with in situations involving mere reality.

Putin is fucked beyond fucked. Let me explain.

He can't pull out now, as that would be admitting the war is a mistake, which is political suicide.

He'll probably take Ukraine, but he won't win. Ukraine is unbelievably unified right now, and there's MILLIONS of militias and insane amount of resistance. That will persevere once Putin takes over the government. 

The only way to put down the resistance is being extremely destructive and brutal, which goes against the purpose and his goals, and what support he has will go down, and the West will be harsher against him. All of this is very undesirable.

In the meantime, his economy will continue to go down hill. By the end, he'll most likely be disposed of by his own people.

Putin is fucked beyond fucked.

Actually, you're wrong, Putin won't get Ukraine. In fact, I'll wager 50 points (I was wrong about this conflict before and I don't plan on it again).

The other stuff I agree with though. He's fucked the economy so hard it'll either cause even more mass emigration, which Putin was already dealing with due to the stagnation of the economy prior to this invasion---by the way, that stagnation was in large part due to his own constant economic malpractice and theft, or people will just turn on him and eat him or guillotine him or whatever it is that poor people do to rich people.

I disagree. At the current rate, he won't take Ukraine. BUT, Russia has only begun to take out the big guns. What you've seen so far is Russia at like, 1%(might be an exaggeration but you get the point). They've started to amp it up, but even now it's not as much as they could do. 

I do believe that Ukraine has a very very solid chance of successfully repelling, and I only said that Russia will probably take over. 

I'll take you up on that wager only on the condition that no other country directly intervenes, and "get Ukraine" means removing the current administration from office (including if Zelensky goes into exile) or pushing them out of the major cities (we can use the top 5 cities for this wager). I'm also not confident about Russia's long-term prospects for holding the territory, so if either of these conditions are achieved even temporarily, I would win the wager. Do you agree to those conditions?

I think that the conditions for "Putin gets Ukraine" are arbitrary and up to my interpretation at some undecided date in the future. Thank you for your understanding.

Ukraine might be unbelievably united right now, but frankly I don't think it would be able to survive a protracted war with Russia. Even with the sanctions, if Russia is just willing to crank up its overreliance on china (which it is absolutely slimy enough to do) it has the resources and the desperate gopnik population to throw at this issue until Ukraine effectively loses the siege and can't put up a reasonable resistance, and no other western country will (or even should) intervene, because Ukraine's geography makes it a hilariously imbalanced chokepoint where the entirety of russia can fire at a funnel formed by two mountain ranges at the only reliable angle that tanks and land vehicles can come through. We might only be able to help with air superiority, but that alone will not hold land, and at the end of the day Ukraine is going to run out of people with guns long before Russia runs out of even its current military personnel.

I don't see any way for him not to win eventually as long as everyone else just stands around and finger waggles, but holding Ukraine is another matter. This might very well turn out to be their Afghanistan.

It'll be their second Afghanistan, except they're weaker this time around

Yeah, that's what I said. Or are you agreeing with me?

Hello, Russian mothers? Come pick up your sons at the Ukrainian principal's office, they were caught vandalizing property.

I believe the correct term is "Mother Russia", not "Russian Mothers".

Okay that is hilarious.

They're being remarkably decent about this in many ways that Putin won't be returning.

Russia meanwhile is shelling a nuclear plant so they can nuke another country without technically nuking another country.

My theory: Elden Ring is a Russian conspiracy designed to take attention off the war. Discuss.

Funny meme, but it honestly makes me think about the fact that we could very well get indie horror games based off this conflict

Personally, I'm excited for Escape from Kharkiv, the sequel to Escape from Tarkov.

Or to distract Ukrainian civilians from leaving.

Apparently Putin told everyone to stop sanctions against Russia as it does not have any bad intentions towards its neighbors, things are being blown out of proportion and that everyone should go back to normalization and cooperation after this is all over.

He's just trolling at this point. Lol.

Putin is obviously just destroying a rampant nazi regime, and protecting the free people of Russia tw- I mean Ukraine.

Putin's still trolling.

Claimed the sanctions on Russia are an act of war, also said anyone making Ukraine a no fly zone an act of war. Visa and Mastercard halted the use of their cards in Russia.

Also there was supposed to be a cease fire to get some people out of Mariupol, but Russia just kept firing at it anyway. Then they basically said "Oh, whoops I misunderstood your request due to all the loud explosions."

That last one reminds me of when I'm playing Civilization and the AI wants a cease fire and I just agree to it long enough so I can move the rest of my units into position to take the city and fortify it properly.

"Instructions unclear, bombed a children's hospital instead."

Even Russians are leaving their own country now.

Probably a good idea if one is concerned about not being able to leave later.

Sort of a funny comparison to Americans that threaten to leave because of whatever politician got elected and then never actually do it because in the scheme of things, shit here is NEVER that fucking bad to go to such lengths.

I got a good chuckle out of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmd_vVIdH4A

Everyone was wondering if China was going to back pedal from supporting Russia considering how much they've bungled this Ukraine invasion and how badly world opinion has gone.

Well, they can stop wondering because apparently China's been supporting the Russian propaganda that the U.S. has biolabs in Ukraine. Got their state press posting it and everything. Could be that they're just stirring the pot to troll the round eyes, but seems like they're still helping out ol' Vlad.

Meanwhile, Russia's currently blowing the shit out of Ukraine's capital. Bombed western Ukraine, and generally continuing to fuck the place up. Rumors are saying they're going to start using chemical weapons, but I guess we'll only know if they start gassing people, If that happens apparently "Russia will pay a severe price" according to Biden.

Short of actually NUKING them, not sure what more severe of a price can be paid. It's clear Vlad gives zero fucks about anything at this point. Seems like he's fully intent on going out with a bang literally.

I gotta confess, this is my fault. I made a bet with Putin over whether he could do anything to a civilian population that might make HelpCon say he wasn't fully justified. I regret it a little now, but there were a lot of points on the line.

If the reports are accurate, Russia is asking China for military equipment.

Sheesh, that's pretty bad considering Russia was once giving them all the stuff they didn't want at one time.

Nevermind, I was poorly informed in my assumption that Russia had basic military infrastructure and would be able to win in an invasion by default. Turns out their vehicles have been well-known impractical pieces of shit since the 70s and are barely any different now, their communications systems are completely unencrypted and anyone with a wal-mart walkie talkie can just go to Ukraine and fart at Russians, their planes can't hit shit because every other country has disconnected them from the GPS network, and even if their vehicles weren't shit, Russia has been so corrupt for so long that barely any of them are built up to any real standards. And how do we know they haven't been built up to any standards? Because farmers routinely "capture" tanks and other vehicles that keep getting stuck in the mud and/or running out of fuel by pulling them away on tractors, and they might actually have more of these shitty tanks with missing parts and expired munitions than the russians do at this point.

Seems like I was sorely mistaken for just looking at the numbers. This isn't even close to an actual first or second world country swallowing a rural microstate with its advanced military technology. This is a morbidly drunk big fat guy trying to whip his son with a belt, but his son is pretty fast at this point and the alcoholic dad is in serious danger going up and down stairs. The whole "loss by attrition" "Russia's second afghanistan" thing that other countries were besieging russia for, assuming it would eventually drain them in the occupation phase of the war, is already happening in the invasion part that everyone thought was a given.

I laughed IRL at the morbidly drunk big fat guy.

And this is what we've been afraid of fighting for so long, as if Russia was an actual military threat to NATO. No wonder Putin got so scared when Ukraine wanted to join NATO.

The issue with the big fat drunk guy isn't so much that you can't fight him, it's that he was also a noted gun nut in the 60s, and if any of the neighbors interfere he's gonna shoot someone.

With a nuke.

Note that the Russian has their own GPS system called GLONASS.

Can't dispute the rest, though it probably doesn't help your invasion when your advancing troops are under the pretense they're heading towards a training zone up to the very point they're under live gunfire.

I may be taking this too seriously but it's kind of scary that this man is one of the richest men in the world, owns around 36% of all active satellites, and he still acts like a frat boy who had too much to drink.

I would pay to watch a gladiator match between Putin and Elon ngl

Normal people don't get that rich. Just be grateful he's (probably) not raping little kids and is at least doing interesting things with his money.

So... If Putin accepts... And Elon wins... Does that mean he'll own Ukraine?

I sure hope so.

My uncle shared this IGN link with me about how Russia is apparently legalizing online piracy to counter sanctions and embargos against them.

What a time to be alive.

https://www.ign.com/articles/russia-reportedly-legalises-piracy-of-games-movies-and-more

Isn't government sanctioned piracy called privateering?

I wonder if the US should drop this in Kiev instead of more javelins.  But maybe it'd be an ideal target for aircraft to try and intercept?

Meanwhile apparently Putin paid a bunch of Russians five dollars (500 rubles lol) to attend his recent rally and there's a deep fake going around with Zelenskyy telling Ukrainians to surrender.

Combined with Russian soldier desertions and minor purges (just arrests for now) of military leaders under the suspicion of being traitors and yeah the campaign is fucked.

My mom started crying when the war started and now she's crying once again. I guess that means this thing hasn't stopped (despite social media no longer caring).

Also, countries and companies have began to discriminate against Russians, and my brother might get rejected from a job for being Russian (despite living in America since the collapse of the Soviet Union and being a citizen of the US). I have a few similar stories that my mom is getting from her acquaintances in America and in Germany. It's interesting how the entirety of the western world is being affected by war hysteria that's resulting from a war that we're not even participating in. It's also baffling how a new form of cultural sanctioning has emerged, wherein orchestras aren't allowed to perform Tchaikovsky because he's definitely affiliated with Putin's despotical regime.

Obviously don't tell anyone you're Russian, say your Polish or some other slav if you get pressed about it for some strange reason (Hell, say you're Ukrainian for sympathy points.)

You guys are white, it should be a lot easier to hide yourself from discrimination.

Just to clarify, I'm not affected at all, but people with Russian passports/citizenships are being harassed by their employers, from whom they can't hide this information.

Probably exactly because we're not partipating, but everyone feels like we should be, and with no meaningful way of affecting anything wants to overcompensate by publicly hating the general concept of Russian things. Same emotion that drives run of the mill virtue signaling.

The music video of Dschingis Khan performing Moskau in 1979 has shot up to 12 million views pretty recently.

Well it's been about a month and the Russians still haven't taken over Ukraine. Things are so bad that apparently some of their troops are getting frostbite due to lack of proper winter clothing.

Like how the hell does Russia fail so hard at something like that, considering that's how they defeated Napoleon and Hitler. Lol.

Anyway, in a bid to stay in relevant, North Korea launched a missile off coast of Japan probably saying "I'm not touching you! Nener nener nener!" the whole time.

Why Japan lol.

They really are just antagonizing other countries at random.

Well Japan did go there and RAEP all their womyns a long time ago. Plus they see them as a running dog of the evil American Empire.

They'd probably like to reach Alaska, but nuking Japan would be a good second place trophy. (We already got the first place one for that)

And they did it yet again, the Russians claimed they were going to reduce military activity and then proceeded to bomb more shit.

Not sure why Ukrainians are even bothering with peace talks at all right now since Russia is obviously just using them as a stall/troll tactic, which has worked better than any of their actual military ones oddly enough.

Also apparently the Russians sent in some infamous merc company known as the Wagner Group. A ruthless bunch that routinely comit war crimes have some Nazi beliefs. Sending in Nazis to "De-Nazify Ukraine" is such a wacky idea!

The founder though just claims to have a "passion" for the Third Reich and named the group after Hitler's favorite composer.

Yep, totally not a Nazi.

Putin's dedication to becoming a cartoon villain is almost admireable in its own way.

He's actually lost his fucking marbles. The shit he is doing is just so absurdly and consistently evil, yet he keeps doing it.

The amount of bungling the Russians are doing never ceases to be hilarious.

Russian troops pulled out of Chernobyl due to taking so many rads that they aren't going to need a flashlight to take a midnight piss.

Not sure why they thought it would be a good idea to dig trenches in irradiated soil, let alone hang out in radland in the first place. LARPing as a Stalker isn't as fun as the video game.

Anyway, Putin just signed a piece of paper to conscript more of his people into this meat grinder since I guess his main goal is wanting Russia all to himself at this point.

I wondeelr, did they dig those trenches im the radiation dirt while wearing the clothes that don't even protect them from the dangerous phenomenom known as "cold weather"?

So the Russians got their flagship sunk by a Ukrainian missile.

Attempting to save face by claiming incompetence instead (It was just a just a fire bro!) doesn't make this look any better for them. Lol.

Yeah, not quite sure why they would miss out on an opportunity to vilify the big, bad Ukrainians and instead go with, "We're just so fucking stupid that we somehow managed to blow our own ship up."

On the bright side for Russia... They've gained a new submarine! ^_^

It allegedly also had a piece of the True Cross onboard.

This makes me think some sorta cool Indiana Jones shenanigans were secretly going on in the background.

Looks like Putin decided to try and drop some bombs on the UN Secretary General while he was visiting Kyiv.

Well this is a long shot since he never was really active and he's probably dead, but might as well ask since he does have an account here.

@Sam_Ursu what's the situation in that weird break away Moldova state you live in?

Hey apparently this is still going on. Russians are even doing mildly better since the Ukrainians apparently keep falling for the whole "Let's sign this treaty...whoops my finger slipped and bombed you instead!" thing.

Odessa got bombed after a treaty was signed to let the Ukrainians send ships carrying grain out their ports. Russia then claimed it wasn't them because why stop at just one obvious lie?

Then the world condemned Russia's actions, which is equally lol worthy. I'm sure the Russian won't do it for a hundreth time with that sort of finger waggling.

Utterly contemptable! Lets all stand by the brave Ukranian people by posting inspirational facebook hashtags and sharing that one meme of shirtless Vladimir Putin riding a bear.

 And don't forget to change your devices' wallpaper to the ukranian flag :)

I might make a much longer post about this later, but it is good that the international community is not only "Condemning" Russian action, but more importantly actively investing in the defense of Ukraine in what amounts to a proxy war.

While it is funny to laugh at the apparent incompetence of inexperienced Russian conscripts, commanders who have never conducted a large scale sustained ground operation, and to a lesser extent the terrible estimates of the intelligence communities of the world, the events beyond that are rather grim.

I must admit, the Russian army is more incompetent than I thought.

Someone actually made a smart move

Russia is firing artillery from a captured nuclear power plant, leaving Ukraine reluctant to shoot back

Ukraine is already mostly fucked, Zelensky should just fire back anyway and surprise the hell out of the Russians.

How did Russia capture it in the first place without firing on it themselves?

Either way, Ukraine has been given so much money by this point and they're under a lot of stress, they should splurge a little and do something special for themselves.

They're saving all that money for next years Eurovision.

They should just use chemical and biological weapons against the nuclear power plant, then. Fight war crimes with war crimes.

Well it's been half a year already and the Russians are still failing hard at this conquest strategy.

Yep, honestly hadn't paid attention to this in awhile due to some other stuff I had going on, then I checked in a couple days ago and Ukraine was just sweeping the board. Really nice to see, they have proven themselves an unexpectedly chadly nation even despite their original dumb pacifist ideals that left them vulnerable to being the target of aggravated Russian incompetancy this way.

I'd posted this elsewhere but here's a pretty moving clip (they use violins, that's cheating...) of Ukranian soldiers singing the national anthem before moving in on the counterattack. https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1568344387137970176?t=sYy7WyDz7h1MUW-B7YcMhQ&s=19

Pulling out all the trolling tactics now.

I hope Russian citizenship is everything he dreamed of and more.


...can he be drafted now?

Yeah, though I would think they'd use him in a military intelligence capacity, since I doubt if Snowden has even the fighting skills of the average Russian citizen trying to survive there.

I'm a little late to mention this, but Russia announced mobilization of an additional 300k people, who are currently getting dirt-coated AKs that were probably manufactured in 1948. I'm sure they're doing just great though, Putin says they're winning! Just like we won in Vietnam!

Mobilization isn't going too well with Russians fleeing and protesting. This guy just up and shot the draft officer

Good for him, but I wish he'd waited till he was in Ukraine to start shooting Russian officers, would've had better odds of things working out for him afterwards.

But most of them are probably more like this guy that mazdark found: https://vxtwitter.com/DylanBurns1776/status/1574424003078389762

Lol.

Putin wanted to be the new Stalin, but at this rate he's going to wind up like Nicholas II.

Three US Embassy has just told American citizens to get out of Russia immediately and that no one should travel there.

Naturally at first I wondered why Americans souls even be over there and who needs this warning, but of course there's people with family over there and dual citizenship, and the concern seems to be they'll get prevented from leaving soon and conscripted in part of the general round up of anyone capable of soaking up bullets. But I'd be unsurprised if they locked down the whole country at this point, everyone is trying to get out.

Related, @WizzyCat, please tell us more about the time you wanted to join the Russian army.

I think that even at my most retarded, I didn't actually want to join the russian army, I just wanted to get my russian citizenship, which requires mandatory military service. Now, I don't have to do that, because I'm old enough to reject dual citizenship and just travel to russia as an American. Not like I'll be travelling there anytime soon.

Losing the war, losing money, losing world respect, and losing support of the citizens, so just say you're winning anyway, annex shit and troll even harder.

I heard the speech was mostly bitching about Western interference and more thinly veiled threats of nukes. Even most of his own flag waving supporters he had bused in in organized groups. But just declaring that you totally already won is a novel way of progressing a war I guess.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63095436

As Mr Putin spoke in Moscow, 750km (466 miles) to the south his forces were being surrounded by Ukrainian troops in Lyman, a strategically important town in the eastern province of Donetsk - one of four regions annexed by Russia.

The town has served as a supply and logistics hub for Russian forces in the region, and it is believed that between 3,000 - 5,000 troops are trapped in the near encirclement.

Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior ministry, wrote that "Ukrainian forces are attacking the occupiers from three directions and their situation is 'incredibly complicated'".

Denis Pushilin, the leader of the newly annexed Donetsk People's Republic, admitted that Lyman was "partially surrounded" and that two nearby villages were "not fully under our control".

To varying degrees, all four of the regions now being annexed are still partially in Ukrainian hands. Together they make up 15% of Ukrainian sovereign territory.

The two eastern regions have been partly held by Russian-backed separatists since 2014, but after seven months of war only 60% of Donetsk can be claimed by Russia, and Luhansk is at the centre of a major Ukrainian offensive. Russian forces could be within hours of losing the strategically significant town of Lyman.

Zaporizhzhia's regional capital is very firmly Ukrainian-run, although in reach of Russian missiles, and Ukrainian forces are only a few miles from the city of Kherson.

Ukraine should respond by announcing that they're annexing Putin's shriveled old man balls. Doesn't seem like it's changing anything for them practically speaking, but Putin will have an excuse to label attempts by anyone else to assist an attack on Russia itself now.

Oh and here's some stuff on the separatist regions being annexed, even though I strongly suspect no one here ever clicks links, ever. https://abcnews.go.com/International/ukraine-separatist-regions-crux-russian-invasion/story?id=83084803

First, I really like the Tom Clancy reference you guys put here for the topic name, assuming that was what you were going for, and second, Lyman fell just a couple hours ago. Apparently it’s an absolute fucking mess. Leadership either fled or got shot, some soldiers are fleeing, others aren’t, and Ukrainians essentially walked in uncontested and started shooting people. mad vlad’s strategy seems to be focused more on defending what’s left in the south and letting the DPR and LPR get fucked.. Institute for the study of war is publishing a daily post on their website if you want all the juicy logistical details.

Mobilised from Norilsk were left to sleep in the empty field near a VDV unit in Omsk. This man recommends others to take everything with them, including food, sleeping bags, gas burners. Temperatures in Omsk this time of year go to -5 celcius at night. pic.twitter.com/HeVCwypNqg

— Dmitri (@wartranslated) October 2, 2022

This is another video from the same place, presumably taken earlier than the night one, by a different guy. pic.twitter.com/LLI55AX2Ez

— Dmitri (@wartranslated) October 2, 2022

The tidal wave of the mighty second army force of the world plan to murderhobo their way to kiev
 

If they were mobilized from that industrial hellhole Norilsk, being drafted is actually a step up for those poor bastards.

Not surprising that they're going to murder hobo everything. They'd probably do that even without a war going on.

Just keeps getting worse for them. Lol.

I've been seeing some speculation that Ukraine may even be able to retake Crimea at this point.

Oh, and they got control of Lyman so quickly and decisively, the Russians there didn't even get to cover up the torture rooms and mass graves they'd been dumping civilian families into.

Definitely two very different kinds of Russian soldiers getting sent over there.

Nearly 100 missiles/drones and still only about half of them got through.

Also Putin blowing up some little Ukrainian tourist bridge in retaliation for the major military bridge to Crimea getting blown up is some really petty shit. Lol

But that was his favourite bridge and they hurt his feelings! >.<

Their deadliest attack killed 19 people.

Pretty sure any ol psychopath without an entire nation's budget and military talent backing them could walk down a street with a rifle and get more than that.

Oh hey, Russian missiles just killed a couple people in Poland. So that's cool.

As we all know, world wars never start unless something happens to Poland. Let the games officially begin.

Well...Except WW1, but that doesn't count because it doesn't fit what I posted just now.

Russia: Five o clock, it's Ukraine raping time.

Russia: Whoops.

Poland: Five o clock, it's Russia raping time.

I like how in the middle one there's a little live notice informing them what the pound is currently worth.





They seem to have opinions about that.

Well China might be a little preoccupied to invade Taiwan anytime soon.

I have a strong suspicion this is fake news that's being spread around, but fuck it, if you're getting your news from this site, you're probably hoping for some lols with it anyway.

There's other articles/videos that go into more detail, but I figured I just nab one that got straight to the hilarious subject

If this is even remotely true though, this is what JJJ would say "Not a good look" but cancer eating away Putin's asshole would partially explain why he's just going full asshole on Ukraine.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/11/europe/ukraine-crimea-melitopol-odesa-intl-hnk/index.html

Ukraine had a very successful artillery strike on the Russians occupying Melitopol. There's a video of the aftermath in the link that I can't figure out how to embed here.

And it seems a couple of days ago there was a very big boom in Crimea that no one is giving a straight answer on.

Well Sam never did get back to us about his status, but something's happening in his Soviet outpost.

Allegedly Russia is running out of normal dudes willing to charge Ukraine with crusty 80-year-old guns, and is now scraping the prisons for suitable penal soldiers.

I thought they had been doing that for awhile now.

Probably, I haven't kept up after the initial clown situation

Yeah, they were sending them off to be human shields for the Wagner group awhile ago. Like 3000 or some ridiculous number died in the first month, not counting a few shot by the Wagner cunts during the half a week of training they received. Very Russian, all in all.

Had a 60 minutes thing on in the background. Apparently some ukrainian woman was being interviewed about the conditions of russian POW camps. There was all the torture and shit happening, bone-breaking, mock execution, making people cut off their tattoos.  But the really interesting part was that the woman said that the Russians only raped the men.

Fucking hell, this shit sounds like that one Hearts of Iron mod.

While it isn't actually news, outlets are recently stating that Russia is deploying T-62's into Ukraine. This is unsurprising, partially because since its production, the T-62 has never been out of service. Despite its antiquated armor, optics, and shoot on the move capabilities, it remains a reliable weapon. The more modern T-90 is built on the same frame. This means the T-62 can be retrofitted with more modern equipment. Here is a somewhat useful link for the intensely interested.


T-62

Probably more to come when I have a day off.

Looks like Georgia has had protests for several days against the government attempting side up to Russia.

Well this thing's still going on, though this recent event seems pretty bad for Ukraine. Granted the whole war has been pretty bad for them. Going to guess reducing Ukraine to a completely destroyed piece of land littered with ruins is about the best Russia can even hope for at this point.

Yeah, this whole thing is a shitshow. They're pointing fingers at each other of course, but this is affecting thousands of people on both sides of the border and trashing huge areas of agricultural land in ways that probably can't be reversed in our lifetime. That kind of shortsighted not giving a fuck feels very Russian.

I like how the reporter just chuckles a bit while asking about his nuclear weapons

There are so many narratives at this stage.  Of course, keeping in mind that triggering the public is utilized for brainwashing.  The lockdowns were perfect for such activities.  People were isolated at home and were interacting primarily thru the internet and watched too much television.  Then you add ASMR stimulus placed strategically to induce theta waves. Which of course makes one open to new programming, ideologies, etc.  Its brilliant really.  

Some people believe Putin is a rebel and the good guy.  Some believe America is the good guy.  Most think Ukraine is the victim.  I believe it's a game of look at the right hand so you don't see what the left hand is doing.   I think a huge part of it is about human trafficking for sex slaves, labor, and spare parts.   

Personally, I think you're fucking retarded 

I'm hearing the Wagner group has given Putin the middle finger and are now in conflict with Russian troops, after a ton of their guys have been killed due to general incompetence/deliberately being treated as if they're expendable.

Man, Ukraine might as well use all that money everyone's given them to hire these guys if they're back on the market.

This is the part where the good guys get the token evil teammate to switch sides!

Just like in Dragon Ball ^_^

It's like Freddy and Jason fighting each other and this just happening to give underclothed teen Ukraine a chance to escape.

So Master Chef stopped his orc rebellion against Putin and now he's been given the option to go into exile to Belarus.

Looks like it was all for the lols and continuing to lose the war in Ukraine is back on schedule for now until some other eastern euro wackiness ensues.

A bit late, but might as well post an update so as to keep our world news thread current.

The Wager group leader died due to an "accidental" plane crash. Putin assures that he didn't have ANYTHING to do with it.

Lol.

Still not sure why Elmer Fudd just didn't go through with the whole rebellion and march on Moscow. Win or lose, he was marked for death as soon as he did that. He of all people should have known you can't half ass something like that.

I never thought I'd learn the backstory to who that guy was from a choose your own story website. I feel like Putin was just a little angry and needed a "win" of sorts to feel better. As someone else said he really is just a kid throwing a tantrum.