That new 15 years in jail rule in Russia for media / social media criticism of the regime seems unbelievably draconian. Seems anyone can be jailed for saying anything mildly critical of the War in an article or even in a social media post. We're nearly into North Korea territory.
Another source said three attempts had been thwarted by inside information from the FSB. The Ukrainian intelligence has been described as "eerily accurate".
Just a guess, but it seems more likely that the Ukrainians are "letting slip" Zelensky's (fake) locations and then waiting to ambush the hit squads and claiming they have a mole in Russian intelligence.
It's near impossible though as lots of things contain Chinese components.
Good guy Germany
It must be immensely satisfying watching these **** fall for it and also sow discord amongst the Russians
Certain international flights are going to get more expensive (can't fly over Ru)
There are reports of Ukrainian citizens being raped by the soldiers and children are dying. To all the But, But, America, But, But, NATO, I hope that you take a long look at yourselves
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin called Friday for the “normalization” of relations with other states, saying Moscow has “absolutely no ill intentions with regard to our neighbors.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-wants-normalization-of-global-relations-saying-there-is-no-need-for-sanctions-on-russia/ar-AAUCfMe?ocid=msedgntp
Just reorient our trade away from there.
Most of the components you speak of are high volume low value.
Russia seems to have toned down the rhetoric today. Putin asking for relations to return to 'normal' with Russia. The Russian UN representative just spoke at the security council stating that they indeed took control of the nuclear power plant, but to ensure the power supplies to the Ukrainian people and to Europe (he pinky promises). Then we've Ireland's Russian Ambassador taking the approach that Ireland is anti-Russian. I do think Ireland have been too vocal in our criticisms as we've no defence, no proper army and quite frankly are trying to play with the military big boys in NATO where we don't belong.
Ambassador Yuriy Filatov tells Russian state TV relations with Ireland hardly exist and Russian children are being bullied here - Independent.ie
I don't believe a word that the Russian's say at this point - an end game needs to be found to this mess, the faster the better.
So are millions of refugees - many of them women with children who may never see their partners again.
I was not taking about Ireland increasing our military spending in isolation like we could stand alone against any major military force no matter what we did. I was talking about increasing our military spending to at least 1% of GDP so we have the capabilities to at least carry out own load within the wider European context unlike now when we simply do not. Our future economically and socially is within the EU and rightly so. We also though have an obligation to have a defense capability that can allow us to contribute to European defense as part of a whole not in isolation. Given we are such a small nation we could maybe look for a more niche role so to speak such as maybe increased naval capabilities given we are an island.
I'm not so sure, the Chechen column was destroyed well out of the city near Hostomel, I doubt the Ukrainians lured them there with a fake location.
You think Ireland has been too vocal in our criticisms? how do you mean exactly..
As for having no defence, army, etc okay, but why should that impact our criticism for invasion and gross human rights violations?
The Chinese are really trying to keep sitting on the fence, not pee off their new best friend Russia whilst at the same time not end up facing their own sanctions.
For all the great economic success and military power they have they damn well need the west to keep buying the shyte they make.
Covid should have woken the West up to not depending on China, and last years ship stuck in the Suez should have been reminder.
The thing is that recent report was promising the moon and the stars for something like a doubling of tripling of spending on defense.
Some things people never seem to consider when they talk about fighter aircraft is the ongoing costs, the costs of aircrew and ground crew training, the cost of spares, the cost of munitions. The upfront price is not where you get hammered, well unless you go for Typhoons or something.
This is a country where we have ships tied up in port, not for the official given reason of maintenance, but basically because we don't have the crews because the pay and conditions are absolutely shyte.
We have an Air Corp that often can't fly at night because they don't have the staff.
Also having experience and hearing in-house stories about the pilots I wouldn't trust most of the feckers with a Spitfire never mind a Grippen.
Ukrainians rejecting propaganda 'aid'
I would wager that this is because the Germans chose to become more dependent upon Russia in the first place, unlike, say, France. I have a recollection of Trump specifically calling them out on this at the UN and the German delegation laughing in response.
On a building in Lithuania
It's a dead obvious ploy hoping he'll come out and do another selfie video showing a background that will let them know roughly where he is, so they can send in the girls scouts to try and sell him novichok cookies, since the Chechen hard men got their clocks cleaned and are permanently indisposed..
You can see how Putin and Russian officials are trying to halt the sanctions by putting pressure on.
This thankfully is an indication that sanctions are having an impact & is more reason for the west to continue piling them on and not show weakness.
NATO are unwilling to engage so at least let the sanctions increase.
While it won't help the Ukrainians in the very short term, these sanctions are a good way to let the Russians know the west doesn't need bullets to hurt them.
Plus since they defaulted on their last interest payment, the Russians reliability on the finance markets is fucked.
He doesn't use Javelins, he just sprints out from behind cover and flips Russian tanks onto their turrets with their treads impotently scrabbling for traction on the sky, like shocked turtles.
The comments from the Russian Ambassador to Ireland is probably being repeated by all the various Russian Ambassadors to various Western countries..
Towing the party line of we are all caught up in a fake media frenzy 🙄
OK, so this leaves Putin in a tricky position...
He could lash out by ordering his forces to go harder on Ukraine and try to force Ukraine to the negotiating table on his terms, but this would run the risk of getting even more sanctions in the meantime as well as further hampering Russia's ability to resume anything like normal relations.
Or, he could capitulate to the sanctions (though he wouldn't phrase it that way) by offering Ukraine a generous peace deal, but he'd probably worry this would make him look weak, domestically.
Or he could retaliate on the sly. He can't sanction the West as bad as the West is sanctioning Russia, but my speculation is his government has every hacker on the case looking for backdoors into sensitive computer systems in the West and/or looking for 'kompromat'. As well as that, ramp up the social media campaigns to divide opinion on support for sanctions against Russia.
The video I'm referring to didn't seem like cluster bombs. It seemed pretty focused on that online building. Its pages ago now though so no point going back looking for it and neither of us are probably qualified to judge if it was a cluster bomb or not.
In any case. You've successfully avoided the actual point I was making so no need to actually ask yourself the question.
What time is the march on the embassy tomorrow?
Try posting the translation in the first place - a one-off effort - rather than being a lazy sod and expection numerous people to all have to do it.
Do Russian police officers really believe in Putin's dogma?! How can they sleep at night?! Why are they so willing to arrest innocent people?
Spitfires are harder to fly than a Grippen and less replaceable. My father had a slight prang with a lorry while taxiing one because you can't see over the nose and what's in front of you.
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