_kbh_

I'm honestly not sure but I'm also not sure we have ever seen a nuclear power with its back against the wall to this degree have we? I'm not trying to make people worried it's just something I personally worry about.

Nuclear powers (including Russia and the USSR) have lost wars before so I’m not sure how they are backed against a wall.

They can always just leave.

Given how multiple cities in Ukraine look after Russias “ground offensive” I presume you’d be fine with Israel flattening Gaza in a ground offensive?.

Considering that’s exactly what Russia is doing to Ukraine.

> The question is actually a different one: about the collateral damage.

Or are you saying that if Ukraine used civilians as meat shields and forced them to stay in place that you would have a problem with what Russia is doing?.

The amount of precision guided missiles that we have seen hit civilian targets makes me think this is just as likely to be an intentional targeting as it is “flying off course”.

Also it would be an AA missile not rocket, rockets are unguided.

> The point of this launch was likely some military target.

You have no way of knowing this, and one could say literally the same thing about the Israeli strikes.

Sure,

So like the Dnipro apartment block strike that was from a Russian Kh-22 and flattened part of the building.

Here's a photo.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Dnipro_a...

It literally nearly levelled a shopping mall and killed 20+ civilians and injured close to 60.

So I guess the real question becomes, are civilian causalities okay or not?, if they are not okay then Russians indiscriminate targeting and killing of civilians in Ukraine is just as bad as Israels.

> And no, ground offensives are not the same. I hope we won't see those in Gaza - there is still chance.

So if Israel kills civilians in a ground offensive does that make it okay?.

It’s like your exactly describing what the Russians did to Bakhmut.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/may/18/stark-b...

You’re not looking very hard then.

The carnage is identical the Russians have literally leveled entire cities in Ukraine, I dare say the Russians have leveled an area that is overall larger then Gaza in its entirety.

This is before we get to the especially brutal parts of Russias war like when they launched an anti ship missile at a shopping centre.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/10/18/identifying-possi...

Exactly, the difference isn't that in the Ukraine war that the Russians are being careful or precise, it's that the Ukrainian citizens can actually evacuate from the areas they are in.

I believe it was the lack of a solid commitment from NATO that caused the invasion, not the vagueness that they Ukraine would eventually join. But all of that is moot anyway, as the Russians where given privates assurances by Germany that Ukraines NATO bid would be vetoed and they still invaded anyway.

The most ironic part of this is that Russias invasion of Ukraine is directly responsible for recent NATO expansion.

How do you have peace with a country that doesn't abide by the peace agreements it signs when it's not convenient for them?.

Russia has literally deleted entire Ukrainian cities off the map, so this is a very strange paragraph to right.

The only difference is in Ukraine the civilians were told to evacuate there homes when the Russians are near by, in Gaza they are told to stay in there homes by Hamas.

It is also much harder to evacuate people in Gaza.

Looking at the crater left behind by the missile and the damage radius I find it very hard to believe that hundreds of people died.

Based on that article specifically.

>> The only early investments were $2 million from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's venture capital arm In-Q-Tel, and $30 million from Thiel himself and his venture capital firm, Founders Fund.[6][7][13][14][15]

Sounds like the CIAs investment arm funded Palantir and didn’t found it, the funding amount also seems pretty inconsequential given the overall funding.

Is a picture of Dmitry Uktin, who founded Wagner with his Nazi tattoo's.

There was lots of talk about him not being part of Wagner anymore then surprise surprise he dies in the aircraft carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin and other Wagner high ups and is later seen in videos with Yevgeny Prigozhin in Africa this year.

They are in a war, its not at all surprising they have closed the border to people leaving there country is literally having a crisis over its very existence.

> oh but atleast they could voice their frustration by joining opposition parties? right? Oh well

They banned the pro Russian parties, which is totally reasonable given the current invasion by Russia, you can join any of the other political parties that aren't pro trying to actively wipe Ukraine off the map.

> Oh well but atleast the good comedian has made Ukraine far more tolerant of LGBTQ, right? oh...

What does this have to do with anything?.

Yes for most, then occasionally things explode with the occupiers on board, I suspect being a mayor or high up position of an occupation government in occupied Ukraine is one of the deadliest jobs in the world at the moment.

> Mostly by the extreme far right azov regiment. Which were banned from receiving any funds from US till Obama administration. Trump overturned it.

The entire country and army is providing fierce resistance. But if you want to talk about far fight extremists why dont we talk about Wagner who was led, by a man with literal swastikas and other nazi imagery tattooed on him until he exploded in mid air.

Considering that two Russian state run news outlets RIA and Sputnik automatically posted a victory article less then a week into the war and then quickly deleted it, I dare say they expected this war to not take very long.

The fierce resistance the Ukrainians are providing would appear to indicate they very much do care about who is ruling over them.

The automatically posted then deleted victory articles on Russian state run RIA and Sputnik news agencies certainly suggests that they were expecting the war to be short.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60562240.amp

The articles were (seemingly) automatically posted ~3,~4 days after the war started.

Literally everything I said is true.

> Ukraine ceased to exist as an independent entity quite some time ago. It 's hanging on only because NATO and EU are propping it up.

It's being propped up because it's hard to have a functioning economy during a war thats literally inside your borders.

> As soon as the USA finds a new thing, and the EU/NATO realise they have been played, then Ukraine will be done.

How have EU/NATO been played may I asked?.

Yeah but theres a big difference between the obvious rabid Russian propaganda and people having a narrative.

The firehose of falsehood is a known Russian propaganda method to muddy the waters and they have used it extensively in Ukraine.

Ah yes, why wouldn't I believe a pro Russian source about whats happening in Ukraine.

That would totally be an unbiased source based in reality and not trying to push a narrative in anyway shape or form.

I think it's the other way around, Ukraine is decimating Russias fighting strength, theres no other real way to explain Russias reactivation of T62 tanks and its frankentechnicals that it has been making from any spare gun it can find and a MTLB.

Oryx literally counts visually documented losses on both sides it’s likely to be a lower bound with rather large confidence on both sides of the conflict.

But it’s still a lower bound.

How is that “proven to be false”.

> MediaZona, an organization run by strongly anti-Putin, pro-Ukraine owners in partnership with the BBC, is going to be the most accurate casualty information you can actually get: https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/11/casualties_eng

But those numbers are very different to the pentagon documents, so they must be false right?.

> And please, enlighten me: how exactly are they taking that many tank losses when they’re literally dug in, not moving, and have pulled the tanks back? They don’t even have to fight, the Ukrainians are doing a fine job tripping every land mine in the region by themselves.

Because Russia isn’t dug in and not moving they are constantly trying to counter attack.

Not only that dug in tanks and tanks behind the front line are still vulnerable to drone borne weapons which are very popular in this war.

There’s evidence they are running out of tanks, like activating T62’s and using Indias T90S’s.

They aren’t out of tanks altogether but they are clearly going through tanks faster then they can make them.

Regardless if the banking sector has sanctions against working with Russian citizens they would not be able to transfer you the money as they wouldn't be able to transfer the money from there bank account (which has to follow the sanctions).

If Russia cared about this so much they could have either formalised there views and asked for an international agreement.

Or joined NATO itself, they did neither.

I’m curious about how this new deal would have actually stopped Russia from just invading again in the future to take more land.

Ukraine already had prior to 2014 multiple international agreements with Russia where they promised to respect Ukraines borders and sovereignty and that didn’t stop Russia violating them.

In fact this deal seems to be explicitly about allowing Russia to invade again by pledging them to stay out of defensive alliances that would finally stop and prevent Russian aggression.

> Ukraine only really has the resources to hit propaganda targets behind enemy lines now

Ukraine has destroyed one of the submarines that Russia was using to launch cruise missiles at them and has leveled the Black Sea headquarters effectively.

They are doing what Russia keeps claiming and failing to do (hitting decision making centres).