I've seen the video. The only caveat I'd throw out is it's only been shared by an account known to spew pro Russian propaganda so it may be bollix.
If it isn't then it should be dealt with and I've seen comments claiming to be someone within the Ukrainian authorities saying if it is their forces the book will be thrown at them.
From the Guardian:
Ukraine will “not be silent” about the “horror” of rapes being committed against women during the Russian invasion, a politician in the country has said.
The Ukrainian MP Maria Mezentseva said while one particularly shocking case had been publicly talked about, there are “many more victims” who will need support in the future.
She referred to a case that Ukraine’s prosecutor is investigating, in which a woman was allegedly sexually assaulted in front of her child, PA Media reported.
Mezentseva, who is head of the permanent delegation of Ukraine to the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, said details of incidents must be recorded as they happen because “justice has to prevail”.
She told Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme:
There is one case which was very widely discussed recently because it’s been recorded and proceeded with [by] the prosecutor’s office, and we’re not going into details, but it’s quite a scary scene when a civilian was shot dead in his house in a small town next to Kyiv.
His wife was – I’m sorry but I have to say it – raped several times in front of her underage child.
Mezentseva, who was speaking to Sky from western Ukraine, said the country could benefit from the experience of other countries, such as the UK, in how to help victims in the aftermath of war.
She said:
There are many more victims rather than just this one case which has been made public by the prosecutor general. And of course, we are expecting many more of them, which will be public once victims will be ready to talk about that.
Bild website latest to be banned in Russia. They are incrementally cutting the population out of receiving foreign news. The minority that can even access that is.
That was always the one claim he was going to hide behind, riding to the rescue of those new democratic republics. As has already been suggested by other posters they will take that as a victory plus whatever bits of land they can hold onto to link to Crimea. I'm not all that convinced that they can even achieve this new plan as there is little evidence they'll suddenly improve as an attacking force. Added to their problems will be all the Ukrainian troops that a pull-out from around Kyiv will free up. Korea is not a model and absolutely nobody will go for it. They will also be very hard pushed to hold onto any areas where there is a belligerent local population. Then there are the sanctions to deal with.
I'd like to see that ballot.
" Should the Luhansk People's Republic be absorbed into Russia? "
[ ] Yes
[ ] I wish to be deported to central Siberia
For all those who keep espousing "make love not war",.. happy to oblige...
Looks like Russia will try to chop Ukraine up, a North/South Korea type situation. Ironically, at the peak in 2014, multiple polls in these areas showed a majority of people in LNR and DNR wanted some independence from Kyiv (e.g. federal) but a majority did not want to join Russia. Of course, Moscow has always had other designs for these regions.
Apparently unverified video around of Ukrainians shooting Russian prisoners in the legs. If true, it needs to be investigated and the perpetrators punished. I understand these Ukrainian soldiers didn't ask for this war, have seen horrific things and may have had friends/family killed, but there is no excuse. They should know that Russia will immediately seize on this as propaganda, and it will give Ru soldiers an excuse to do the same (and worse) to Ukrainian POWs.
It's a war, it's nasty and beyond brutal, people crack, incidents like this will happen, but it's important they try to keep incidents to a minimum. Russia wants incidents and atrocities like this to occur, they want to drag Ukrainians down to their level, they absolutely want to turn Ukraine into Syria.
Generally the ones that stayed within their borders and only persecuted their own managed to avoid being assassinated. The more adventurous ones who decided to attack foreign countries ended up being cut short which may point to foreign interference deciding the fate of alot of these despots.
Russian are not willing to collect bodies, so it will be a letter only. But if they really send the 17-18 y/o Putlerjugend to the front line and if the reports about paper industry problems are true then they might have problems even with letters.
As for the average Russian? You'd have to wonder if they have really benefited from Western shops, restaurants, businesses, etc. Particularly those rural Russians. They may never have seen any of the Western lifestyle. So might not be that affected and happy to keep going.
Now this is just going on what Russians I've known have said to me and one client of mine who was in and out of the place in the 90's and made a few more visits a few years ago. For the average Russian in the decent sized urban areas, even in the far east of the country, times are noticably better for them today(well before this mess) than they were twenty years ago. The babushkas with the cow in the shed, an acre in veggies and chickens would have been the least affected, both by the bad times and the good, but even there they will have seen their kids and grandkids having a better go of it than them because they tend to leave to move to urban areas for education and careers. Way back in the thread I mentioned a Russian woman I knew living here who grew up in one such rural area and she told me moving as kid to urban Russia for her education was a much bigger culture shock for her than moving to Ireland.
Put it another way TV and look at us in Ireland. Compare our lives today with our lives in the 1970's. We got a massive injection of Western "stuff" and culture in the 1980's which in turn was one of the major factors for radical social changes in this country. If sanctions hit us like Russia and we had to go back to something like 1970's Ireland we'd be none too happy.
Age wise. Some got brutal (no tears here) humiliating deaths.
They don't to badly on average:
Mussolini 62
Stalin 75
Hitler 56
Franco 82
Mao Zedong 82
Papa Doc 64
Kim Il Sung 82
Pinochet 92
Ceausescu 71
Idi Amin 80
Mugabe 95
King Faisal 68
Gaddafi 69
Sadat 63
Albert René 74
Marcos 72
Hussein 69
If they benefited from western shops or western medicine or whatever, it doesn't matter.
What will bring the war into sharp focus for them is when 10s of 1000s of very young poor conscripts coming back in zinc coffins. all though zinc could be at premium so they might just get a letter.
Someone will call bullshít on all these "training accidents".
If you take the conservative figure of 10,000 in a month, with the Ukraine now going on the offensive, the number will get very high very fast, particularly if the west fulfil what they have promised weapons wise.
They do get paid better by far than regular people. Will THEY be the elite in a regime change? That's their risk. It could be argued they would better control the situation if they led the change. But, it's rare the person that wields the dagger becomes the king.
Another factor is that, while better off than most, their pay is reduced relatively speaking outside Russia. They won't like that. And Russia will remain screwed while Putin is in place.
That's a fair point. It's definitely a mixed bag of living to old age or taken out.
Suppose the one difference here would be a lot of the upper class Russians got very used to the European lifestyle. They'd be furious to loose that. They might organise something.
It's basically the Russian version of the US Secret Service. No matter the number it's still only people and they are all malleable.
How many have friends or relatives serving in the forces invading Ukraine?
How are their loyalties if those people they know or love die in a futile war?
I don't think "Poundshop Adolf" is very secure at all.
We can but hope. On the other hand he has strong support in Russia and since the Russian propaganda narrative is one of them being victims of outside forces and never to blame themselves and any internal mistakes are down to fifth columns and traitors, he could spin his and his military's screwup to that end. Along the lines of "Look! My Russian brothers and sisters, I told you Western nazi forces were ranged against us in our glorious fight against facism!!" kinda thing.
Sure a goodly chunk of those under 30 won't buy it, but most of them have learned to say nada, because the risks are too high and the rewards too out of reach because of the Russian state's overwatch apparatus.
Actually quite the number of them do die of old age/natural causes. Mao of China, Chiang Kaishek of same, Leopold of Belgium, Franco of Spain, Amin of Uganda, Hirohito of Japan, Castro of Cuba, the Kims of North Korea, Pinochet of Chile, Pol Pot of Cambodia(though imprisoned, he avoided execution and died in his sleep from a heart attack) and of course Stalin of we know where. Lenin too. And that's just the last century
It can be easily argued that it's typically more the case that dictators, autocrats and mass murderers get away with it and that pricks like Hitler are the exceptions.
Fertilizer looks like being out of supply or about 7 times the price of 18 months ago come may.
As is it's left any relevance to agri product prices.
Good idea an ounce of **** might be worth an ounce of gold and then we will all be buying big yachts.
I don't see how he's vulnerable to a coup, unfortunately. He has a state body, the FSO, that is apparently fiercly loyal to him and that personally guarantee his private security and maintains his homes, yachts, food and they number 20,000. He seems to literally waft along in a secure bubble.
https://www.grunge.com/493922/heres-how-intense-putins-private-security-is/
Not all if many dictators live to a very old age…..? Hitler did a DIY job on himself in his 50’s….Mussolini got executed in his early 60’s….., Stalin was in his 70’s rumours now say he was poisoned…..could we be as lucky with the current version…..if Pooh-tin was assassinated/ decapitated/ poisoned…..would all his current ‘yes men’ and regime crumble and country could have a new beginning with some form of semi-sane leader or would it be just destined to revert back to megalomaniac type leader similar to this current ‘abomination of a human being’😡😡
Should we be saving up all our 💩? As the saying goes, there's money in dirt. And people used to sell their urine before. 😀
As for the Russian May Military parade, they might display real power weapons.... 🚜
If Putin is the victim of an internal coup, then the West doesn't technically need to make him pay. Not directly, anyway. Just apply enough pressure on Russia to make Putin's domestic position untenable.
F***ing hell ! Hopefully Russia do not peg Fertilizer to Gold and demand payment in Roubles next
Would be a good buy. Battle proven, reliable.
though I hope that is the case, and preferable sooner rather than later. I have a bad feeling Putin is gonna get away with this. How deep is the wests resolve to really make him pay this time.
Even the Russian army will go the way of the nazis.
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