This attitude of Russia just unilaterally deciding to take stuff should be pretty fair warning they may do the same thing in the arctic. Once they grab it, we probably won't get it back, ever. I'm not sure what we need to do to prevent that, but it's fairly obvious it is a lot more than we are currently doing.
Reverse 180 on what the Liberals have been doing the last 7 years.
Build pipelines, feed energy to Europe, take profits and build a proper military.
Or don’t and watch Russia and China slowly encroach, but live in pure smugness that your making David Suzuki happy. He’ll pick up a rifle however won’t he? Seems pretty ornery with reporters.
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It raises the question as to what the Russian goal is at this point. If they occupy Ukraine or install a new government, they are likely going to be met with continued resistance. This isn't like the Crimea, where they can just take over and the population will be significantly pro-Russian. The West of the Ukraine seems fiercely anti-Russian. Are the Russians just going to be an occupying power for decades? Can Russia maintain that?
At this point, Ukrainians are so anti-invasion they will continue fighting even after their cities get leveled. If Russians do end up staying in Ukraine it'll be a pile of rubble filled with corpses and a humanitarian crisis that their sanctioned country can't afford. This Ukrainian MP puts it well as he takes up arms against the Russians. https://twitter.com/user/status/1499861292710047751
At this point, Ukrainians are so anti-invasion they will continue fighting even after their cities get leveled. If Russians do end up staying in Ukraine it'll be a pile of rubble filled with corpses and a humanitarian crisis that their sanctioned country can't afford. This Ukrainian MP puts it well as he takes up arms against the Russians. https://twitter.com/user/status/1499861292710047751
Barring a diplomatic solution, Russia will continue to gain land until it runs out of resources. Once they do, they will stop and occupy whatever lands they will have by that point. Ukranians will take a breather and then go on the offensive
That's not true. We spent a good bit of time learning about it in Social Studies, I did a video project on it. Still have it on VCR somewhere...maybe they aren't teaching about it anymore?
Russian authorities say that Zelenskiy fled to Poland. Interestingly Russian media don't believe it, so they report it as "Parliament's speaker claimed that Zelenskiy ran to Poland" rather than "Zelenskiy ran to Poland"
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Russian authorities say that Zelenskiy fled to Poland. Interestingly Russian media don't believe it, so they report it as "Parliament's speaker claimed that Zelenskiy ran to Poland" rather than "Zelenskiy ran to Poland"
There's a bunch of psyops happening right now hoping to demoralize everyone there. The Ukrainian intelligence is also expecting terrorist attacks, although I don't know what that means in an open war.
To be fair, at the start of both wars, only the Germans were really prepared and everybody else were terrible until they got bloodied multiple times.
Even in WW1 the Russians still generally beat up on the Austro-Hungarians and Turks when they did not have German Army support.
The Brusilov offensive is the only example I can think of where this might have been true. Otherwise the Eastern Front pretty much dug in like the Western Front with little gains in either direction. And Tannenberg was undoubtedly a disaster for Russian forces and a major domino; it's the reason Solzhenitsyn's first book in his Red Wheel series chronicling the demise of the Imperial Russian Empire was August 1914.
Ukrainian civilians are doing their bit to slow down the advance of Russian troops with mass harassment. Partially explains the Russian's slow advance through the cities aside from the Molotovs, etc.
Spotted Frodo Baggins at 0:52. Russians so unprepared they didn't even bring their entire body.
Spotted Frodo Baggins at 0:52. Russians so unprepared they didn't even bring their entire body.
I dont know whether the story is true or not but in the 70's Soviet tank design put such a premium on low silhouettes that they built tanks so cramped only crews under 5'6" could fit in them and that pretty much meant their whole tank arm was manned by Siberians who tend to be short, this of course was considered a security threat as Siberians arent always friendly to Russians themselves
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I dont know whether the story is true or not but in the 70's Soviet tank design put such a premium on low silhouettes that they built tanks so cramped only crews under 5'6" could fit in them and that pretty much meant their whole tank arm was manned by Siberians who tend to be short, this of course was considered a security threat as Siberians arent always friendly to Russians themselves
Its pretty true especially with the T-55 and to an extent the T-72. The Russian's always made weird design choices. the autoloader, puting a fuel line around the seal of the main turret on the T-72. On one of their APC the backdoor that the troops disembarked on also served as a fuel tank.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Strong g video how they just whisked people off to war with little pretext and said it was an illegal war. This is how wr got nazis i ww2 yo come clean. Shoe them kindness and show they had been brain washed. Hopefully more Russian soldiers see the light.
Slava Ukraini , glory to the heroes and yes #### putin
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Putin might be crazy but he isn't dumb. There's a reason why he put out a nuclear alert and increased the readiness of his tactical and strategic forces across the board.
a disarming first strike depends on missiles needing prep time before they launch, knowing the location of all of the missiles and having a firm fix on the Russian Missile submarines.
Usually in a lower state of alert or no alert, missiles aren't fueled, and target packs on silo's are always loaded as are submarines. But mobile missiles (and the Russians have a lot of mobile launchers. need to be targeted and that takes time as does fueling liquid fueled missiles.
As soon as the alerts went out. The missiles were fueled and ready to launch and target packs were confirmed. Missile boats were probably ordered to dive deep and evade any American surveillance and mobile missiles were moved to new locations and oriented.
in gun terminology, when the Russian's are not at a heightened state of alert, its the equivalent of getting a gun out of your locker, putting a magazine in it, taking off the safety, chambering a round and aiming it. Now it sounds like a lot but rotating missiles to a firing position from a non alert status probably takes about 30 minutes to an hour.
Right now, the gun is loaded and the safety is off, and the finger is literally putting pressure on the trigger of an aimed gun.
Also Russian surveillance satellites are zoomed in on American missile silo's looking for a indication of prefiring or ignition.
For an American disarming strike to work, they have to know the location of about 5500 warheads deployed in silos, submarines and mobile platforms. This is where the overkill works in MAD. The Russian's don't need 5500 warheads to devastate the United States and Europe. They need at most less then 10% of that number to launch and reach their target. It goes to the theory that its impossible to thin out the Russian nuclear arsenal enough for it not to destroy you before you destroy them.
Its also more then likely because of the heightened state of the Russian nuclear arsenal that American bombs and missiles are hitting empty silo's and spent mobile launchers because the missiles left in mere minutes after the detection of an American launch, or even detonation of a missile off of a stealthy platform.
Trust me when I say this, even if we imagine that a large percentage or majority of the Soviet Missiles are non functional due to bad maintenance, and American missiles somehow carry out a fairly successful disarming strike and this knocks out 75% or 80% of the missiles (unlikely). We're still talking a calculation not of what's killed, but how many times over we've been killed or how fair the debris flies.
Just as an addon, Its likely that the Russian targeting package would look like this with the largest cities
150 warheads aimed at washington, 150 warheads aimed at new york, 100 warheads for LA 100 war heads at Chicago, 100 war heads at London. Etc etc etc.
Small correction out of the 6000 nuclear weapons possessed by the Russians, 1600 are on their land based ballistic missiles and sea based SLBM. These 1600 missiles are strategic weapons which are city busters. The rest are mounted on things like cruise missiles, bombs, torpedeos, mines etc.
But you get my drift.
So what you're saying is the world should just take Putin's nuclear blackmail?
Bombing innocent kids in their beds is enough for me to loose my mind
If he gets away with this he and others like him won't stop with this type of madness, his bluff needs to be called, all NATO nuclear nations should go to defcon 1 and tell him the complete end of Russia for the next 1000 years is moments away. Lets see if his cabinet and oligarchs are truly willing to follow him then.
I personally don't want to live in a world being blackmailed by a little sawed off narcissistic thug.
Haven't seen an update from Huntingwhale in a while. Hope all is OK
I've held off updating for a bit, as things were moving fast for my wife's situation the past couple days and I honestly just didn't want to jinx it in case things didn't work out. Apologies for keeping everyone in suspense . I'll give a brief update as it's still a very fluid situation for her.
Spoiler!
A couple days ago we decided to keep our contact to a minimum, as her phone was low and she had 50% left on her powerbank. Just wanted to do the occasional contact for any important news updates I could give her, and to let me know she was safe. I finally heard from her last night. We had a quick conversation and she said in the morning, her and 2 other girls she was with were going to take the train from Kharkov to Lviv.
Her step-dad, on his ####ing 44th birthday, drove the 3 youngest women (wife included) to the train station in an attempt to get them to safety. He took one of the back roads which apparently was pretty quiet, although there was a #### ton of exploded tanks, vehicles and bodies all over the place. He then drove back and will be taking care of his wife, SIL and his physically challenged Mother for however long this ordeal goes for. Sacha, you are a ####ing BOSS! I will never forget the risk he took to get the young women out, in an attempt to get them somewhere safe and to better their lives. I only hope my wife and I can continue to help them out financially when we are able to. We are already doing so, but we're going to step it up even further.
So my wife and her 2 companions are currently waiting to take a train to the West of the country and eventually get to Poland. They don't know when or how they will be able to board the train. It's obviously busy AF right now, and they are prioritizing mothers and children, while letting some groups of women and students on occasion. Not sure if men are allowed on, given the law of 18-60 males not allowed to leave the country. Not sure if that includes being able to ride rails or buses.
She is prepping to spend a few days at the station, as that is a possible scenario. She doesn't have much food with her, but has lots of water. She said it's chaos inside, as people are obviously very frightened and desperate to leave. No schedule on trains leaving. No stores or kiosks anywhere. Not sure if there is any kind of food or aid available, or how the hygiene services are. Can only imagine it's brutal.
If/when they are able to get to Lviv, they will then have another challenge of making it to the border. I know there are a couple trains and buses doing so, but again, thousands and thousands of desperate people trying to do the same. Looks like it's a day walk minimum. Not sure if they have any kind of aid stations if they decide to walk. She said the will try to find something on the internet, volunteers or special transportation services.
Then once they cross the border, they will need to get to Krakow if I cannot find a ride to the border to pick them up. I'm hoping they will have some kind of shuttle service to Krakow, which would be the easiest solution and than I can meet them there. Still reading up on all the transportation options around the border. I've had some people at work offer to help, so I'll see if they are still willing to do so. #1 priority right now is them getting on the train to Lviv. Once she is on the way to Lviv, we'll be able to plan further.
Currently charging up my powerbanks and making a small travel pack and ready to leave when I am told to do so. Will arrange some kind of accommodation for us all in Krakow or Rzeszow for a couple days for them to rest and refuel, before we all head back to Gdansk together.
I'm glad her and her companions were able to find a way to the train station. But now further challenges lay ahead. Just hoping and praying that things will work out and we'll be together soon.
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Listened to Vindman on 'the argument' podcast. Was excellent. He saw this coming for years and had the courage to speak out on trump. Very level-headed guy: https://podbay.fm/p/the-argument/e/1646184600
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By some miracle, wife and her 2 companions got on a train to Ternopil. East of Lviv. Going by what's on the https://liveuamap.com/ map, it appears relatively calm....I hope. Can't find anything on the news about it what's happening there. Never heard of the place or what they will expect when they arrive. Seems like a lot of students have evacuated to that location.
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Location: Wondering when # became hashtag and not a number sign.
Exp:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
Cold war, MAD, SALT agreements and START treaties, SDI(Star Wars-not the Ewok one). Alberta education, early to mid '90's. Unless our teacher went off script, I'd assume most Albertans that age learned them, no?
Like I said...i have no idea what the curriculum was in Social Studies after the cold war ended. But good stuff that it was covered even if its not any longer.
I was merely saying that the very large population still around who lived it in real time have a very different perspective on nuclear war vs those who came along after. Earlier in this thread someone suggested a pre-emptive nuke strike on Russia as an example. That made me chuckle in that, there is no such thing.
Both sides know where the other sides launch points are at any given time. Once a single missile is in the air (and hopefully they would take every precaution to be positive) then others will follow in response and so on.
Just an observation between the gens is all.
Anyone remember the air raid sirens that were once dispersed around Calgary?
IIRC there was one either in the parking lot where Glamorgan bakery is or it was across the street beside AE Cross jr high. Looked somewhat like this
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. I'll give a brief update as it's still a very fluid situation for her.
