I haven't made any predictions. — Paine
How would you guess that from my life of work? What is your life of work? — Paine
Predicting Ukraine will win when they won't, is not "pro Ukraine" it's just wrong if Ukraine doesn't win. If you think Ukraine will win, ok, why, how, when?
You put words into my mouth. — Paine
You keep making rebuttals to arguments I am not making. — Paine
And, on the subject of Nazis, they simply don't bother to address the main stream media (bbc, vice, guardian, reuters) reporting on these organisations before this year, don't even try to explain where these Nazi's supposedly disappeared to, the mere fact that only the "extreme right" or the "extreme left" needs to be linked to making making the same point, and everything can be dismissed. — boethius
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for his "lack of understanding of the seriousness of the moment and lack of concern for his people".
Maybe Putin is pushing Lukashenko's Belarus into the war? — jorndoe
The Ukrainian side needs to take into account the realities that have developed during this time. And these realities indicate that new subjects have appeared in the Russian Federation. They appeared as a result of referendums that took place in these territories. Without taking these new realities into account, no kind of progress is possible. — Dmitry Peskov (Dec 13, 2022)
One lever is that if Russia meets certain demands of the international community, such as withdrawing from the areas occupied since the beginning of the war, the sanctions imposed as a result can be suspended. We have to increase the diplomatic pressure so that exactly that happens. — Martin Schirdewan (Dec 22, 2022)
Our goal is not to spin the flywheel of military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war. We will strive for an end to this, and the sooner the better, of course. I have said many times: the intensification of hostilities leads to unjustified losses. All armed conflicts end one way or another with some kind of negotiations on the diplomatic track. Sooner or later, any parties in a state of conflict sit down and make an agreement. The sooner this realization comes to those who oppose us, the better. We have never given up on this. An antidote [to the Patriot air defense system] will always be found. So those who do it are doing it in vain. It's just prolonging the conflict, that's all. — Putin
In the context of the current situation in the world and the West's expansionist line, it is obvious that this decision was primarily prompted by a task of the total geopolitical conquering of the region. — Maria Zakharova
It will be premature to launch any serious negotiations on security guarantees in the context of Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic region as long as weapons and funds are being pumped into [Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s] regime, as long as US and NATO servicemen/mercenaries/instructors remain in the country and unless certain practical developments on the ground are recognized. — Alexander Darchiev
In certain instances, Russian military officials are actually subordinate to Wagner’s command. It’s pretty apparent to us that Wagner is emerging as a rival power center to the Russian military and other Russian ministries. [...] It seems as though Mr. Prigozhin is willing to just throw Russian bodies into the meat grinder in Bakhmut. In fact, about 1,000 Wagner fighters have been killed in the fighting in just recent weeks, and we believe that 90% of those 1,000 fighters were, in fact, convicts. [...] It’s all about how good he looks to Mr. Putin, and how well he’s regarded at the Kremlin. In fact, we would go so far as to say that his influence is expanding. — John Kirby
Everyone knows that it’s been a long time since North Korea has supplied weapons to the Russian Federation. And no other such attempts have even been made. Therefore, these arms deliveries from the DPRK are nothing more than gossip and speculation. — Yevgeny Prigozhin
No one can deprive a person of the right to defend his motherland, his mother and his family by all available means. — Yevgeny Prigozhin
The foundations of law are being destroyed in Russia for the sake of a future defeat in a shameful war. — Alexei Navalny
Prison inmates etc. don't make good soldiers, on the contrary. But it tells about the attitude.... But how much of a difference are they making? Can they become a political force in Russia? — jorndoe
This article is based on months of interviews with current and former Russian officials and people close to the Kremlin who broadly described an isolated leader who was unable, or unwilling, to believe that Ukraine would successfully resist. The president, these people said, spent 22 years constructing a system to flatter him by withholding or sugarcoating discouraging data points. — The Wall Street Journal
I think the biggest problem is that basically Eastern European history isn't even looked at itself, but we in the West focus on the region either as a theatre for the implementation of the Holocaust or a geographical area where Germany and Soviet Union clashed during WW2. And then afterwards that these countries were either under Soviet rule or were their satellite countries. Some Katyn massacre is a side note some might know, but otherwise there is actually blissful ignorance especially what the Soviet Union did in the areas it occupied.Eastern European nations have the extra twist of having had some of their populations participate in the Shoah. Other groups fought for autonomy against the Red Army or against the Germans depending on who was seen as the bigger threat. Ukraine had the special attention of Stalin before the war when much of the population was starved to death in order to eliminate the Kulaks. The swirling series of conflicting ends defies simple categories. The groups mentioned have a number of overlaps that History still has not resolved. — Paine
Swedish investigators discovered that Thulin and another accomplice had received weapons training in St. Petersburg from the Russian paramilitary group Partizan. Partizan runs weapons-training courses on behalf of an ultranationalist organization called the Russian Imperial Movement, which has avidly supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Russian Imperial Movement was previously designated by the U.S. Department of State as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization in April 2020 for providing training for acts of terrorism. Despite the all-encompassing crackdown on domestic civil society groups across Russia, curiously the Russian Imperial Movement continues to operate.
Despite the all-encompassing crackdown on domestic civil society groups across Russia, curiously the Russian Imperial Movement continues to operate. — OSCE
Why would you go after those organizations you sponsor?(link injected by me)
Despite the all-encompassing crackdown on domestic civil society groups across Russia, curiously the Russian Imperial Movement continues to operate.
— OSCE
... and Rusich ... :/ The invasion wasn't about that stuff anyway. A ruse, an excuse. — jorndoe
"The enemy is well aware of our proposals for the demilitarization and denazification of the regime-controlled territories and the elimination of threats to Russian security from there, including our new territories (the DNR, LNR, and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions)," Lavrov said, repeating false accusations of Nazism against Ukraine used by Moscow in an attempt to justify its invasion.
"There is just one thing left to do: to fulfill them before it's too late. Otherwise the Russian army will take matters into its own hands.
"With regard to the duration of the conflict, the ball is now in the court of Washington and its regime. They can stop this futile resistance at any moment."
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