moon
Satire for Sanity
A minor problem, Tranquilizer, but your effort to educate the forum on Ukraine's NE-Nazi problem is appreciated. Prior to you posting about them most of the brain-washed dullards would have dismissed them as fantasy.
Russia faces a crisis of morality
- Thread starter Cypress
- Start date
A minor problem, Tranquilizer, but your effort to educate the forum on Ukraine's NE-Nazi problem is appreciated. Prior to you posting about them most of the brain-washed dullards would have dismissed them as fantasy.
moon
Satire for Sanity
Your description of Putin- or at least the description you've borrowed- does not match the facts. Should Russia collapse as a result of this conflict then you've got a point. Until then it's advantage Russia.
moon
Satire for Sanity
I've not seen any statistics that I can trust- although the photographs of the same burned-out tanks are becoming familiar.
danielpalos
Verified User
Yet, right-wingers always seem to eschew Capitalism and never present any better solutions at lower cost.
Tranquillus in Exile
New member
How many representatives does the Azov whatever have in the Ukrainian government, moon? Is it 0, zero or none? I think we should be told!
Putin doesn't have a choice, at least in his mind.
He belatedly realized he cannot defeat the Ukranian military on the field of battle, so he sees his only option to pull some kind of win out of this is to terrorize civilians into submission.
so many missed opportunities to keep Russia out of Xi's grasp
If we would have simply treated Russia with some repsect for security - but the Cold Wariors treated Russia like a stooge (Yeltsin and Clinton) or an existential threat back when Putin came to power-
or even stayed out of the Euromaidan revolution
Russia has China so it will do OK - now we get to face a united Russia-Sino alliance
because we made that happen
NATO is fine for Europe but China and Russia are already dominating the Arctic
moon
Satire for Sanity
The Neo-Zionists don't have any direct representatives on the Hill- but they still control it.
Tranquillus in Exile
New member
Ukraine: who knew?
The first signs of Russia's intentions came a year ago. Intelligence from satellite imagery pointed to a Russian troop build-up around Ukraine. But analysts had little understanding of Moscow's true intentions.
That changed in mid-2021. "From summer we saw a small group of senior people planning for a full military invasion of the whole country," explains one Western intelligence official.
The intelligence gathering and analysis was a joint US-UK affair, those involved say - one calling it a "family" operation. There was no single moment of understanding but rather a picture that became increasingly clear as time passed.
Vladimir Putin seemed to believe that he had to act quickly to fulfil his ambition of bringing Ukraine back into Russia's sphere of influence. And he believed the only way to do so was by force. "He felt like he had a closing window of opportunity," says one person who was directly involved.
A crucial moment came in early November when CIA Director William Burns travelled to Moscow to warn that Washington knew what was being planned. The first some senior Russian officials knew of Putin’s intentions towards Ukraine was when they heard it from the director of the CIA, one official says.
In London the intelligence coming from GCHQ and MI6 was met with near-disbelief in some quarters. A common problem inside and outside government was that people simply could not believe that a major land war could break out in Europe in the 21st Century. It was only late in the year - after the Joint Intelligence Committee issued its considered view that an invasion was now "highly likely" - that people began to realise this was for real.
Other allies were also briefed, but many remained skeptical. Some European partners did not buy the analysis that Russia's build-up was anything more than bluff. France has recently sacked its head of military intelligence for failing to see what was coming.
The public release of information included the UK sharing details of Russian plans to install specific individuals as part of a puppet government in Kyiv, and Washington revealing plans by Moscow to stage pretexts for war, so-called false flags. American and British spies believe that publicising this material robbed Moscow of the ability to justify the invasion to its own people.
On one level, much of the intelligence was spot-on. There was, as forecast, a full invasion from multiple directions with the purpose of overthrowing and replacing the Kyiv government. It was also understood that Moscow had misplaced confidence about the reception it would receive. "They genuinely thought there would be flags out to welcome them," says a Western intelligence officer.
But one assumption did prove to be wrong: that Russia’s forces would prevail in a matter of days. Few people expected Ukraine to be still standing nearly two months later.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61044063