Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[The Brain]

Wait, Fox News is evil??!?

[Tamas]

We ARE reliving the late 1930s holy crap. This is how it must had felt as a non-fascist to see Italy and Germany go rampaging around and all the "realist" talking heads (somebody shared with me some American or Canadian historian who is a self-labelled "realist" who claims this whole mess is the West's fault and Russia has a right to its sphere of influence) go about defending them while salivating at the thought of introducing their regimes and modus operandi back home.

[Razgovory]

I've always thought it weird that there is a place in Russia called "Beloo Zero".

[Sheilbh]

https://twitter.com/antontroian/status/1496426736925483012

Russian state TV is now following up on Putin's speech with a graphic diagramming territorial "gifts" to Ukraine from Russian Czars, Stalin, Lenin and Khrushchev. The yellow bit in the middle is labeled "Ukraine."

So the Soviet Union's territorial gains in Poland after WWII that were attached to Ukraine were "a gift from Stalin"?

What is each label? I know Crimea was attached to Ukraine by Krushchev in the 50s, but what about the other "gifts"?

Clockwise from the top "gifts" from Russian Tsars, Lenin, Khrushchev, Stalin and in the middle - Ukraine. Particularly striking is it doesn't look to me that Kyiv is in Uraine.

[Tamas]

Also if I was a Russian fascist leader what I'd try to be doing is convincing the Ukrainians that they only want the western third of their country, not the bloody middle.

BTW this private firm offering military satellite info to the US claimed last night that they are seeing 100 more vehicles and a lot more tents in Belarus. If that's true, then taking Kiev is most definitely still planned. 

[Syt]

The UN General Secretary called out Russia's course regarding Ukraine and said that the UN Charta is not a document where you can pick and choose what you like and ignore the inconvenient bits. Lavrov had a fit after that and demanded he should focus on facilitating dialogue between conflict parties and not pick sides.

[Sheilbh]

I think he's also really annoyed at Russia saying they're sending "peacekeepers" which obviously they're not and peacekeepers are a real thing.

[Syt]

There's that too of course.

[Admiral Yi]

I think he's also really annoyed at Russia saying they're sending "peacekeepers" which obviously they're not and peacekeepers are a real thing.

Trademark infringement

[Eddie Teach]

They got their peacekeepers off Wish.

[mongers]

This is a good line said during Johnson's PMQs this afternoon:

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford accused the Conservatives of allowing " a sewer of dirty Russian money" to run through London. He also accused the Tories of raising £2.3m from "Russian oligarchs" and asked the PM if the money would be returned.

[Syt]

According to Austrian paper Der Standard Romanian politicians to claim that the leaders of Moldova's breakaway region Transnistria have traveled to Moscow and are going to ask for a similar deal as Donets/Luhansk (couldn't find independent confirmation on the quick.).

[FunkMonk]

Btw, the previous debate about Tucker Carlson could be extended to the whole of Fox News, apparently: https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1496242512272543745

I mean, when Candace Owens parrots Putin's talking points...

Candace Owens
@RealCandaceO
I suggest every American who wants to know what's *actually* going on in Russia and Ukraine, read this transcript of Putin's address. As I've said for month— NATO (under direction from the United States) is violating previous agreements and expanding eastward. WE are at fault.

I think Owens is more the fact that she is a completely vacuous, ignorant, naive idiot. A genuine "useful idiot" if there ever was one.

Tucker seems to have some sort of ideology. Owens is just a moron who takes as gospel whatever fits her prejudices.

[Sheilbh]

This is a good line said during Johnson's PMQs this afternoon:

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford accused the Conservatives of allowing " a sewer of dirty Russian money" to run through London. He also accused the Tories of raising £2.3m from "Russian oligarchs" and asked the PM if the money would be returned.

Yes - but I worry a little about the focus on "dirty Russian money" because the real problem (and I think the real source of political influence) is "dirty British enablers".

We can name as many dodgy oligarchs as we want and sanction them but it won't mean anything if we don't put money into investigating and prosecuting economic crimes (which we don't) and we don't address the entire networks of British, polite, upper middle-class lawyers, estate agents, financial advisers, accountants who help unlawfully obtained money flow (and they're pretty neutral whether it's Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, Chinese, Nigerian etc money)  - including, I'd note, help setting up Scottish Limited Partnerships which are an infamously opaque corporate form (over 70% are owned by entities in secrecy jurisdictions like the Seychelles or Belize).

Even a long list of sanctioned organisations or individuals that was well policed would be something and look like a decent effort, but it wouldn't address the real issue. Kleptocrats don't really have that many assets in the UK compared to other jurisdictions - a house, some hedge fund investment, a yacht (Abramovich is an exception). The reason the UK matters is because our smart, clever, charming professionals have built and maintain the pipe that lets those kleptocrats launder their money into clean assets all over the world. We should do stuff about the assets and the specific Russian entities and individuals, for sure, but that's at best half a job if we don't take on the enablers (and the assets will just move from Russian owned to, say, Emirati owned).

[mongers]

This is a good line said during Johnson's PMQs this afternoon:

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford accused the Conservatives of allowing " a sewer of dirty Russian money" to run through London. He also accused the Tories of raising £2.3m from "Russian oligarchs" and asked the PM if the money would be returned.

Yes - but I worry a little about the focus on "dirty Russian money" because the real problem (and I think the real source of political influence) is "dirty British enablers".
....

Yes, that's a good emphasis to place.

Also sewers implies someone built it to take the effluent away, maybe cesspit it a better word, but not sure how that would grab the public attention vs sewer.