This, coupled with the requirement of Russian oligarchs who have decamped to Dubai and Abu Dhabi to escape Western sanctions to have Russian-speaking staff, is likely to be creating the perfect conditions for women and children to be forced into the sex industry or domestic servitude.’
The document also condemns what it calls ‘propaganda’ about the idyllic lifestyle of the rich and powerful in places such as Dubai.
This is why I hate those “Lifestyles of the rich and famous” reality TV shows.
This stuff is not unfortunately rare in wartimes, wouldn't surprise me if it was legit.
And yes it's stupid. Even if you're not starving, taking supplies from the enemy does no harm, and people during wartime should be stockpiling every chance they get, because you never know how things will be tomorrow.
We can only hope it will be mostly interpreted with at least some reason. But it's war Wars make people angry, and bitter, and unreasonable.
I am not an expert in this law, and perhaps there's more to be interpreted once it's fully in place. But I can give some insight into this, as my in-laws are/were direct recipients of Russian "aid" in their occupied village of Kozacha Lopan north of Kharkiv city.
According to my wife, who was there when the invasion began, every scheduled food delivery truck was refused entry after Feb 24. Most were stolen en route at checkpoints. A few volunteers who tried to bring food via vehicles were straight up murdered. Once word got out of stolen supply trucks and drivers murdered, attempts to bring food from Kharkiv stopped about a week into the war. The stores in the village were ransacked by the Russians and unless people had food supplies, which luckily my in-laws did, food was scarce after a short time.
Soon afterwards after much outcry from residence towards the occupiers, aid DID begin to arrive. However alongside the aid came TV cameras to record how the brave Russian soldiers were helping to feed the very populace they were starving. Here is an example video showing the Russians helping the "liberated" :
I have mentioned before that KL has been used a propaganda filming area since the war began. The russians record handing out food and evacuating people, and they will say nonsense like it's footage from Kherson and at one point were saying it's footage from Mariupol. You can look up Козача Лопань on Youtube to see some of their footage of what the occupying force does to "help" the people in KL. I have been to this village myself, so pretty surreal for me to see places and people I recognize being recorded in staged settings like this.
The TV camera crew always travels with the aid team. Always. Nothing is handed out until the TV camera crew is set up. My MIL and her sister actually got recruited to help hand out aid. They were told what to do once the cameras were on and it was "strongly suggested" to them to not waver from the script once the camera was recording. As a reward they were rewarded with 10 cartons of cigarettes and 5 large boxes of dry food and supplies. This is what they did to survive. If this makes them guilty under the new UA law, then so be it. Lock them up, because they are "guilty" AF.
The point of all this, is that this law is stupid for the most part and not a single Ukrainian who is in occupied territory receiving supplies from the Russians is going to care. Kozacha Lopan hasn't seen a single supply of aid from the Ukrainians, mostly because as I mentioned the supply trucks are stolen or the drivers are murdered. KL is cut off from the UA government. KL is completely dependent on Russian food aid for people still living (aka held hostage) there.
Luckily the women in my wife's family were able to escape a few weeks ago along with other females in the village. Men are still not allowed to leave. My FIL is still trapped there and receives Russian aid every week. When you are starving, you don't give a #### where your next meal comes from.
Last edited by Huntingwhale; 08-18-2022 at 09:32 AM.
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Looks like Ukraine is making it rain a bit tonight. And they are crushing the meme's. Reportedly quite a few more ammo dump explosions including a couple actually in Russia. #FURussia
Good summary on Ukraines actions today/tonight. Attacks in Russia, may have gone after Sevastopol bridge, and another major Air base where the orcs left a bunch of airframes out.
Things are intensifying heavily and very quickly. Apparently Russians told ZP (sorry I am not going to try spelling it) power plant workers to not go to work tomorrow (today). It's speculated that Russia is planting explosives and planning to spread a nuclear accident and blame Ukraine for it. Desperation has set in for Russia. A phone video taken secretly based on orientation shows heavy military presence within the plant itself.
This is going to be article 5 and may be about to enter an unprecedented chapter.
Things are intensifying heavily and very quickly. Apparently Russians told ZP (sorry I am not going to try spelling it) power plant workers to not go to work tomorrow (today). It's speculated that Russia is planting explosives and planning to spread a nuclear accident and blame Ukraine for it. Desperation has set in for Russia. A phone video taken secretly based on orientation shows heavy military presence within the plant itself.
This is going to be article 5 and may be about to enter an unprecedented chapter.
I suspect because Erdogan was meeting Zelenskyy today as a pseudo emissary for Russia, it was extortion pressure for the meeting. Signs seem to be pointing to Russia trying again for some kind of negotiated settlement where they keep ill gotten gains.
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I suspect because Erdogan was meeting Zelenskyy today as a pseudo emissary for Russia, it was extortion pressure for the meeting. Signs seem to be pointing to Russia trying again for some kind of negotiated settlement where they keep ill gotten gains.
The issue is...what is Putin's end game today? We know his end game at the start of the invasion, but what about now?
Even he should know his days are numbers and they can only push on this Ukraine disaster for so long, and as soon as he falters he will be taken out.
Will he want to open Pandora's box when he already has it half open? A desperate Putin may resort to nukes and nuclear accidents
Putin could still save face. He could immediately retreat from Ukraine and come up with some BS about how they successfully imposed sanctions on Ukraine and signed a treaty to secure Russia's security. Then have state media pump the narrative, and celebrate the brave sacrifice of the thousands of soldiers who gave their lives for "freedom". The Russian population would buy that. He can't save face internationally of course, but domestically he can. And since they are becoming a hermit kingdom, that's all that matters.
Instead he drags it on and continues the bloodshed on both sides for no reason.
Things are intensifying heavily and very quickly. Apparently Russians told ZP (sorry I am not going to try spelling it) power plant workers to not go to work tomorrow (today). It's speculated that Russia is planting explosives and planning to spread a nuclear accident and blame Ukraine for it. Desperation has set in for Russia. A phone video taken secretly based on orientation shows heavy military presence within the plant itself.
This is going to be article 5 and may be about to enter an unprecedented chapter.
I get that the majority of their propaganda is for their domestic audience who are too dumb to know otherwise. But this is something that someone in leadership with a brain MUST know that the reaction to this will be significantly more serious.
So trigging whatever kind of nuclear incident they plan on doing AND trying to blame it on Ukraine simply isn't going to fly. No one in the West is dumb enough to fall for that (unless you support Putin). Shelling Ukrainian schools and blaming in on Ukraine is one things since that incident stayed inside Ukraine. Blowing up a nuclear plant where the aftermath can spread across Europe and trying to blame Ukraine is straight up the dumbest things I've heard in my life.
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Any idea what percentage of things like tanks, planes, helicopters etc., Russia has lost in this war, of their total active supply? Are we talking under 10%, or much higher?
Excellent article written by the Polish PM on the situation in Ukraine and how time after time after time, the powerful countries of the world and the EU have been 100% wrong about Putin and how to deal with him.
The warnings had been given and nobody listen. Putin literally doing whatever he wants without any sort of indications of stopping.
His care factor for his people, his solders, and human life as a whole is that of a piece of lint in your belly button. A non factor.
He doesn't have an end game in my opinion and can't resort to going back to normal life and times for himself, his family or his legacy. This is a game of poker or whatever to him and others think that it will come down to him winning or losing the game. He is going all in on this in a lot of ways but we have a segment of the worlds leaders, normal people and others who don't think he might just be a sore loser and cause some incredible global destruction on his way out.
Who really knows what will happen with this nuclear plant situation, the war in general or how Putin reacts. All the intelligence and reporting that has come out in recent days shows an insane level of mystification at this as Putin used to be rationale, pragmatic, calculated, level headed and more. Those days are done.
I really do think we will get to the point where the global community and the powers at be will be forced to make a decision on him and his leadership. Some disagree but these are also the type of people who thought that the sanctions would have had a massive effect on Russia by now, that the elite Russian's would have forced Putin to stop. Everything the west has done appears to be reactionary in dealing with him and we don't have a solid track record on this. If and when we get to the stage, will people look back and wonder why this wasn't stopped earlier? Like some of the Washington Post reporting that came along. We had Biden and Macron from France trying to appease this guy with diplomacy and he was worried that he missed his workout from that day and was enroute to play hockey and laughed it off.
Wild times we are living in 100%
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Wars make people angry, and bitter, and unreasonable.
