Sanctions against Russia

[onetrack]

Nev, you're on a different level. We started discussing the Russian helicopter pilot who defected to the Ukraine, and who went to live in Spain. His carcass was found riddled with 12 rounds and the Spanish Police initially thought it was a local gangster hit - until they found out the ID of the victim.

 

To everyone else, it appears the Russians tracked the defector down and eliminated him - but the Russians claim it's all fake news.

 

The discussion about Navalny was some way back, but Peter has brought it forward again.

 

Edited February 20 by onetrack

[nomadpete]

10 hours ago, willedoo said:

Russian press is reporting that the Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine with the Mi-8 helicopter has been found dead in Spain. They're saying he was shot 12 times and run over with a car.

Nev, refer back to this post regarding12 shots, etc

[willedoo]

putler is one step closer to total censorship. They have a new law coming in on March 1st. which bans advertising and providing information on VPN services. Websites are already removing information about services ahead of the ban. After March 1st., they risk being blocked or face a fine of 43,000 USD.

 

The idea of it is to prevent the public from accessing any internet that is not filtered by the government. I don't know how the public will get around it. Best I can think of is to bookmark as many VPN services as possible before the ban comes in, and then via that, hopefully maintain a pool of current links. The place gets more like North Korea every day.

[nomadpete]

5 minutes ago, willedoo said:

The place gets more like North Korea every day.

And how long has North Korea  been  like that?

 

Don't expect  anything to change for the better, for at least a century.

[willedoo]

When putin exits the planet, it will be a starting point but there would still be a long way to go from there. There's plenty more like him (or wannabes)

[nomadpete]

I feel that the vacuum left behind Pootin's death, will be a very worrying time.

 

For all the shortcomings of our democracy, we always have a replacement waiting in the wings.

 

Who or what will replace Pootin when his time comes, as it will inevitably must?

[facthunter]

North Korea is right next to CHINA. Putin has countries around him he's had strife with.. North Korea has some pretty sound reasons to HATE the USA and Japan. Not that I think "little Rocket Man' is doing great job.   Nev.

[willedoo]

I think fear of putin and the 'better the devil we know' theory has driven U.S. policy on Russia for way too long. Maybe it's time to deal with him finally and then sort out the consequences after the fact. Everything the U.S. does just emboldens putler. This stupid policy of slowly weakening Russia by sacrificing the blood of others is not working. If they don't take the blinkers off, it's very soon going to backfire on them. Appeasement stinks.

 

The sanctions are a joke when you look at how much trade still goes on between Russia and the west after ten years of war against Ukraine. Slap the little man with a wet lettuce leaf; that's all they've done. They keep talking about the sanctions biting. Maybe one day in the future when they take their teeth out of the glass and put them in. It's been a fairly gummy bite so far.

[Marty_d]

Bill Browder was on RN today talking about Navalny's missus and how Putin might have to face some unintended consequences for murdering Navalny a month before the "elections".  He made the point that the US has already frozen a huge amount of Russian money, and he hopes this latest outrage will encourage the recalcitrants in the Republican party to actually confiscate the money and use it for Ukraine's defence and rebuilding.

Given that the GoP seems to have become an asylum run by the inmates, I'm not hopeful.

 

(Yes, sorry to muddy the waters by talking about Navalny again, but it's all to do with Russia and the diseased chimp running it.)

[willedoo]

13 minutes ago, Marty_d said:

Given that the GoP seems to have become an asylum run by the inmates, I'm not hopeful.

I don't think we should hold our breath. The GoP is a Loony Tunes episode that has no sign of ending. It's almost like a GoP/United Russia coalition these days. Reagan would be turning over in his grave.

[willedoo]

A lot of good and a lot of bad has been said and written about Navalny over the years, and he's certainly been a political chameleon over the course of his career. But there's one thing that has been a constant all that time, and that's his public opposition to government corruption. Wind the clock back 17 years when he was still a far right nationalist and you can still see plenty of evidence of his anti corruption stance back then. His political views changed (thankfully) over time, but his anti corruption stance was always there.

[red750]

Sleepy Joe wonders whether Putin has taken Donald Trumps statement literally when he said "Putin can do whatever the hell he likes."

[facthunter]

Sleepy Joe eh! Stop reading SKY. Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

Sadly, the US people aren't able to discern fact from fiction..

 

Rather than parroting disparaging adjectives designed to distract from what is really happening, look at how the US economy is doing under Joe v Donald..

 

HInt under one, it was a lame duck..

 

Have your pension/super allocated to US stocks? You are doing a lot better than you were under DT.

[facthunter]

You run the risk of ruining a good story by bringing FACTS into the argument. Nev

[red750]

5 hours ago, facthunter said:

Sleepy Joe eh! Stop reading SKY. Nev

I saw  the video of him speaking, heard his words with my ears. Don't blame Sky or anyone   else. The facts speak for themself. 

[facthunter]

It MUST be TRUE then. You are referring to the ELECTED LEADER of OUR Principal ALLY.  Nev 

[red750]

I know who he is, and he's 100 times better than the orange buffoon, but he is starting to show the effects of his age. Mind you, he's only about four years older than me.

[facthunter]

The Poor Don is probably stuffing it up MORE "Gaffes" than Joe.  Don is working alone. His knowledge is more than  enough NOT! but Joe works within the system which IF it's stuffed USA is too.. God-Emperors are a dime a dozen in the third world and the world of Trump. He boasts, He's NEVER read a book.. Pure GENIUS.  Nev

[willedoo]

 A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found 86% of Americans think Biden is too old to serve another term as president. That figure includes 59% of Americans who think both he and Trump are too old and 27% who think only Biden is too old. It's always possible he might step down citing health reasons before the election, but I don't know who the Democrats would put up. By convention that would be the VP but I can't see Harris as being very marketable.

 

If it came down to Trump vs Biden, part of that 86% would still choose Biden over Trump. Even if you thought he was too old, a vote for him would help keep Trump out. Having someone half senile in the White House is not the end of the world. He always has the option of resigning later on and being replaced by someone more competent. If Biden wins, the worst that can happen is that he gets replaced part way through his term. If Trump wins, the worst of everything could happen.

Edited February 21 by willedoo

[onetrack]

And either one of them could drop dead at any moment - and if that happened, it would alter the entire scenario to something that no-one has even conjectured about yet.

[onetrack]

Word is out that the French are going to deliver some new high-tech Kamikaze drones to the Ukrainians over the next few weeks, and these drones have the ability to take out more of the Black Sea fleet.

 

https://dronexl.co/2024/02/18/france-support-ukraine-kamikaze-drones/

[onetrack]

The Ukrainians will be clinking the champagne glasses for weeks, now. They obviously had intelligence that several platoons were being assembled for an inspection by an idiot Major General.

They waited until all the Russian soldiers were lined up in a solid pack and dropped a HIMARS shell on them and killed 65 of them in one hit. The pro-Russian bloggers are furious.

Possibly the part that will annoy the Ukrainians is that the Major General hadn't actually arrived at the troop assembly, he was still on his way, so they missed killing him.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13107757/65-Russian-soldiers-killed-Ukrainian-missile-strike-ordered-line-parade-blundering-war-commander.html#:~:text=Russian forces were hit by,formation by a blundering commander.

[willedoo]

It's interesting that Chief of General Staff Gerasimov hasn't been seen in public since the command post in Crimea was hit in early January. At the time a Russian Telegram blogger said prelininary information suggested that Gerasimov had been killed in the attack. It was never verified or collaborated and there's been little mention of it since, but it's odd that he hasn't been seen or heard of in weeks now.

[willedoo]

14 hours ago, onetrack said:

Word is out that the French are going to deliver some new high-tech Kamikaze drones to the Ukrainians over the next few weeks, and these drones have the ability to take out more of the Black Sea fleet.

 

https://dronexl.co/2024/02/18/france-support-ukraine-kamikaze-drones/

It makes a lot of sense. What better testing ground for new developments than an active war zone. As far as I know, the Boeing Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs recently supplied are fresh off the production line and haven't been issued to U.S. forces yet.