Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[rareboy]

I think the US and China should have Ukraine and Russia sit down and at least start to talk.

How jejune.

There is a whole organization devoted to this diplomacy, but it doesn't favour the aggressor state in opening negotiations.

I get it vlad...you want to give Putin what he has stolen and more because you are apprently worried he has targeted you house in Texas with a nuke. But not really.

 

[ravenstone]

How jejune.

There is a whole organization devoted to this diplomacy, but it doesn't favour the aggressor state in opening negotiations.

I get it vlad...you want to give Putin what he has stolen and more because you are apprently worried he has targeted you house in Texas with a nuke. But not really.

I don't want WW3, all I think Russia should get is some type of guarantee that Ukraine will leave the Russian people in the eastern edge of Ukraine alone and let them live in peace and not be forced to give up their heritage. The time to have won this war was a couple of years ago.

 

[ravenstone]

[Quoted Post: Removed]

So how do you see Ukraine winning the war?

 

[TX-Beau]

So how do you see Ukraine winning the war?

I don't. no one is going to "win." I also think the bullshit fear the Putin bomb propaganda you spew is trying to make Ukraine lose.

 

[Alistair]

So how do you see Ukraine winning the war?

It’s not a war. It’s an illegal invasion by Russia on a sovereign country.

 

[cityboy-stl]

I don't want WW3, all I think Russia should get is some type of guarantee that Ukraine will leave the Russian people in the eastern edge of Ukraine alone and let them live in peace and not be forced to give up their heritage. The time to have won this war was a couple of years ago.

This sounds very much like the same "type of guarantee" between Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler.

We'll let you have the Sudetenland if you promise not invade other countries and let the people live in peace.

How did that work out?

 

[rareboy]

Appeasement of rrrrXXZZZia is the surest way to guarantee a full scale war.

 

[rareboy]

Ukraine has struck the oil depot in Feodosia, Crimea and has announced that the transit agreement for rzzxin gas and oil will not be renewed when it expires in a few months, urging Europe to switch to other sources for oil and gas.

Kamala Harris has stated she would not discuss ending the war in Ukraine with Putin without Kyiv's presence: "Ukraine must have a say in its future." She also emphasized that ending the war requires Ukraine's involvement and adherence to the UN Charter.

Meanwhile, rrrzzia continues to target civilian housing with Shahed drones.

 

[bendted]

It’s not a war. It’s an illegal invasion by Russia on a sovereign country.

Yeah...OK...not a war. It's a "special military operation."

 

[rareboy]

Zelenski has presented the victory plan to the EU Council.

And it appears that the delivery of F-16s is being dragged out, in part because the US is now training younger cadet pilots.

 

[KaraBulut]

The Kremlin won't give up on this.

They are determined to seize Ukraine one way or another. And Moldova too.

And Hungary. And other east european countries as well.

And of course they are almost all the way there with the US ...

Something to keep an eye on today. It's election day in Moldova. On the ballot: the Presidency and an EU membership referendum.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/moldova-votes-election-eu-referendum-shadow-alleged-russian-meddling-2024-10-20/

Polls show pro-Western incumbent Maia Sandu has a comfortable lead over her 10 rivals on the ballot, though the race will go to a Nov. 3 run-off if she fails to reach the 50% threshold to win outright.

Polls show she is likely to face Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor-general backed by the traditionally pro-Russian Party of Socialists, if the vote goes to a second round.

Sandu hopes to see a resounding "yes" at the referendum, which will decide whether to insert a clause into the constitution defining EU accession as a goal.

And guess who isn't happy about it? Their strategy: make the polling station lines look very long so that people give up or don't vote at all.

‘Artificial’ crowds in Russia aim to disrupt EU referendum, Moldova warns

The Kremlin has been accused of vote-buying and using proxies to influence the outcome of the vote in Moldova.

www.politico.eu

Russia is bussing in thousands of voters at overseas polling stations in a bid to influence Sunday’s critical presidential election and EU referendum in Moldova, according to allegations by Moldovan officials...

However, two polling stations established in Russia to count the votes of Moldovans living in that country have seen huge numbers of people lining up outside, with pro-Kremlin social media accounts posting clips of them singing Soviet-era patriotic songs as they wait.

And if flooding social media with images of long lines doesn't work, there's always cash:

Moldova election: Russian cash-for-votes flows into Ukraine's neighbour as nation heads to polls

Sunday's presidential election is seen as a vote on whether the country looks east to Russia or west to the EU.

www.bbc.com

The sniffer dogs at Chisinau Airport have been working extra hard in recent months, searching for money that might be evidence of Russian meddling in Moldovan politics.

Ami, a black retriever, gives every suitcase that rolls in on the baggage claim belts a good sniff on all sides. If she detects cash, she will freeze. Back in May she was doing that a lot.

That is when customs officers began finding large amounts of money on passengers arriving via connecting flights from Moscow. People who had never left Moldova before were returning from a few days in Russia with wads of notes.

“Almost everyone had money: 2,000, 3,000, 7,000 euros”, the head of customs at Chisinau Airport, Ruslan Alexandrov, remembers. The amounts themselves were not illegal but the patterns were suspicious.

Where was all the cash coming from? A Moldovan oligarch who is hiding out in Russia.

The authorities believe the cash mules were part of a major and ongoing operation to buy political influence run by a fugitive Moldovan oligarch named Ilan Shor. Convicted of major fraud in Chisinau, he is now resident in Russia which will not extradite him.

Ilan Shor is a Moldovan-Israeli who was sentenced to a 15 year prison term in 2017. Shor was involved in a scheme which embezzled nearly $1 billion US dollars from several Moldovan banks. Shor had acquired major interests in the banks, which then made massive loans to Shor's companies. The transactions were later deleted from the banks books which sent the banks into insolvency, which required a government bailout.

After Shor's conviction, he fled to Russia. He's now, coincidentally, sending bribe money to Moldova in hopes of getting pro-Russian candidates elected, using couriers from Russia and a Russian-affiliated bank. Voters are offered up to $750US to vote for pro-Russian candidates. About 130,000 Moldovans are believed to have received money from Shor's vote-buying scheme.

 

[rareboy]

Big pro-Eu demonstrations in Georgia in the run-up to their elections...they might be lucky that the Kremlin has so few soldiers ready for fighting that North Lorea is 'loaning' Putin 15000 meat bags to fight in Ukraine.

I have to think that Chechnya is also depleting the forces available to prevent the overthrow of their erratic, Putin bitch Khadyrov at some point.

At the same time though, rxxxzia keeps carving away at Ukraine territory in Luhansk...the prize in this whole invasion.

 

[KaraBulut]

Some insights from an interview with Paul Whelan, an American citizen held in a Russian prison for 5 years. Whelan was released in the recent prisoner swap.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/20/politics/paul-whalen-interview/index.html

Whelan said that 450 prisoners from his camp went to fight in Ukraine as part of recruiting efforts by mercenary outfits including the Wagner Group, which signed up tens of thousands of prisoners from jails across Russia to bolster Russia’s brutal invasion. His camp was primarily made up of young men from central Asian countries such as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, Whelan said.

“From my camp, 450 went. I knew all of them. Some of them are dead. Some have arms and legs missing. They’ve all got some sort of PTSD. They went through a traumatic experience,” he said. “They were used on the frontlines to walk through minefields. They were used as cannon fodder. They would be sent out in front of patrols to try and draw the enemy fire. That’s what Russia is doing with these people. And they’re all young. Putin is throwing away a generation of his youth in the Ukraine for nothing.”

 

[KaraBulut]

Something to keep an eye on today. It's election day in Moldova. On the ballot: the Presidency and an EU membership referendum.

It's close. The EU vote is nearly 50-50, with 50.4% voting in favor of amending the Moldovan Constitution to support future EU membership.

The current pro-EU Moldovan President will be forced into a November run-off election against her pro-Russian opponent.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/21/europe/moldova-eu-referendum-democracy-interference-intl/index.html

With more than 99% of votes counted, 50.4% had voted “yes” in the pivotal referendum on whether to enshrine in the country’s constitution a path towards the EU, according to the Central Election Commission....

Despite winning more first-round votes than she did in 2020, Sandu also failed to secure enough votes to win outright in the country’s presidential election, held on the same day. A second round will be held on November 3.

Why is Moldovan independence from Russia so important? Moldova is one of the weakest of the former USSR nation-states. It also has a weak economy that has been hit hard by the Russia-Ukraine war.

Why is it important for Ukraine? Russia already has possession of a eastern Moldovan province called Transnistria that borders Ukraine to the west. Russian control of Moldova and Transnistria would allow Russia access to the Black Sea from the west of Ukraine.

 

[rareboy]

The Kremlin buying votes in Moldova isn't much different than Musk buying votes in Pennsylvania.

It should never have been this close in Moldova, but Putin will spare no expense.

 

[rareboy]

A heavy day of personnel losses as PutinCo. ratchets up their fight to take territory before winter sets in.

They are also sending over a 100 drones again yesterday with all but 14 taken out by electronic warfare or anti-air missiles.

 

[KaraBulut]

The Kremlin buying votes in Moldova isn't much different than Musk buying votes in Pennsylvania.

It should never have been this close in Moldova, but Putin will spare no expense.

It's exactly the same thing: a guy with too much money and too much power trying to buy an election.

I saw an interview with a woman who had just voted. She had tried calling the person who had promised her money to vote against the referendum. The guy wasn't returning her calls, so she likely never got her money.

One distinction that Ilan Shor has over Elon Musk and Peter Thiel is that a lot of Shor's money was stolen from the people of Moldova.

 

[rareboy]

I suspect that none of the idiots who voted against the referendum would ever see their money because it would leave a paper trail.

I still maintain that rrrzzxxxianz and their bumboy oligarchs in the former USSR are structurally incapable of not lying and cheating their marks.

A system that starts at the top and then filters all the way down to the numberless thugs and grifters making up the majority of the population.

My fingers are crossed for Sandu, but at some point, Putin will just have her killed if Moldova doesn't move forward to join the EU.

And damn the EU as well...for not making an actual effort on this.

 

[rareboy]

So let's catch up...the Kremlin has also helped its allies cheat the election in Georgia after their interference in Moldova....next up...let's see what their influence will be in the US elections where they will be trying to create the chaos TrumpCo. needs to say they have won before the votes are counted.

It has been confirmed by NATO that North Korean forces are now fighting in rzzzia against Ukraine. The question is, will NATO countries send in volunteers to fight back.

IF the west just decides to let Ukraine now fight multiple countries forces on the ground alone, the war will surely be lost to the Kremlin and Korea. November 6th may tell the tale.

Meanwhile, we approach the 700K mark for rrrzzzian casualties...it is no wonder that they need the North Koreans...their own armed forces are dwindling, despite conscription and the appetite of the western rrrxxxnz to send in more of their young men and women is apparently weakening.

 

[rareboy]

rrrzia is on the offensive with warnings to Latvia and the west.

It is difficult to tell whether this indicates a certain nervousness about the outcome of the US election or a certain belligerant confidence, because they are dismissing the Ukraine peace plan out of hand and threatening Latvia.