At least they got one of them-
"Russian colonel Yuri Budanov, convicted of murdering Elza Kungayeva in 2000, was gunned down in Moscow, Russian authorities say. Photograph: Sergey Venyavsky/AP
A former army officer who tortured and killed a young woman in one of the most notorious crimes of the Kremlin's "dirty war" in Chechnya, was murdered in Moscow.
Yuri Budanov, 47, a former tank commander – lauded by Russian nationalists, but reviled in Chechnya – was shot four times in the head by bullets fired from a silenced pistol. His body could be seen slumped on a pathway next to a playground.
The attacker had apparently waited in a white Mitsubishi Lancer, which was driven by an accomplice and later found abandoned on a nearby street."
Russian colonel who killed Chechen woman shot dead in Moscow | Russia | The Guardian
You should be depressed then. If you're only joining the thread now, you've a bit of catching up to do.
Did you not see the Z rally's outside of Russia? It's not just those within the borders. The Russian's that fled fled more out of fear for being conscripted themselves as opposed to any opposition to the regime. Otherwise, they would have fled sooner. The ones that left before perhaps were of a different attitude. There's no silent majority. There's major indifference for the most part.
It was only when the mobilisation happened that the borders with Russia really had to be firmed up. Divisions are only happening now because they are not winning. Putin is a despot alright, but he could be replaced by worse. I don't hold much optimism for them guiding themselves away from the path they've gone down. But that's their choice. As I said, lets worry about Russia's future once Ukraine's has been secured.
What would be the reaction in your regiment if any of the crews performed like that during exercises?
I lived through and remembered the Cold War of the early 1980s where talk of nuclear armaggeddon was commonplace. It's where my concern about the USSR then and Russia now comes from, plus a carryover fear of nuclear war from that age.
Oh trust me, they are. Did you even read your own link? Look at the "teams" Russia was up against and then ask yourself again why they won 🤣
That threat has allowed things to get to this point. Should they be allowed march all the way to France because of that threat?
Ideally, of course not. Leaving aside for now the crap performance of Putins army in Ukraine so far, how do you control all of the escalatory scenarios that would probably result if they tried? Would it be a conventional (ie, a non-nuclear) conflict?
That's just it. They've threatened escalation umpteen times. China has finally told them to tone it down. They've bluffed big time with Ukraine. Have Ukraine not attacked annexed Russian territories? Where were the nukes?
Did Turkey not shoot down a Russian fighter previously? We're no closer to nuclear Armageddon unless some ridiculous chain of events happens. Russia won't go nuclear over Ukraine.
They need to be turfed out and the lesson they should learn is that having "the bomb" doesn't give you free reign over your neighbours fledgling democracies.
And the country they attacked gave up the bomb, in return for commitment from Russia not to destabilise or invade and to respect its territorial integrity.
So there's another message from Russia guaranteed to ensure no other country follows Ukraine down that path.
That was comedy gold, but I suspect a clever plan by the Russians to get NATO to reduce their military budget by 90%.
Two things to note. Nothing to be worried about re the Chinese & will the Russians be able to field a team in the next competition 🤣
Never said Russia was a normal country. You’d do well as a misinformation specialist yourself if your recent responses are anything to go by.
The crews in question would be buying a lot of beers.
That, and there'd be some additional training put onto the schedule.
Nice deflecting bit of a rant you went on there. Again, point out where i said Russia is a normal country? “Join foreign websites like boards.ie”. Is that aimed at me or what? If you must know, no, I’m not Russian.
Your man on Sky News was talking about this-
Explosions were reported near Balaklava -apt name, near Sevastopol
Google maps is quite interesting to look at in this are to my untrained eye. Looks like lots of storage going there, but I cant seem to link the the google maps location
@44.5987975,33.6698329,4200m/data=!3m1!1e3
how do you search for @44.5987975,33.6698329,4200m/data=!3m1!1e3
https://youtu.be/H22JOiXdm94
Van Dyk (pro war) commits to debating Scott Ritter (anti war). Should be interesting.
Some of the objects look like artillery pieces and some of the buildings also have more than 4 structures on the roof. Total conjecture but could be antennae alongside AC units etc.
For future use, just search the longitude/latitude in Google Maps without the rest of the details.
(Search for: 44.5987975,33.6698329 and leave out the rest)
I've a possibly stupid question, but before this ridiculous invasion, it was nigh on impossible to adopt a kid from Ukraine. Does anyone know if this has changed since February because I'd gladly try and make a difference for one or two if it meant that they don't have to be exposed to any more of these despicable acts. I find these pictures truly harrowing but I can just close the webpage when it gets too much, these kids don't have that choice and no one deserves to have their carefree youth ruined like this and have little hope in the near future for better.
They say American pilots have great admiration for Ukrainian pilots-
One bit about resilience the rest basically "ah it's not that bad, everyone used to live like that". Struck me as pretty dismissive of the harsh reality.
I certainly didn't label them snowflakes, far from it. You chose that particular term which is wholly inappropriate in the given situation.
But yes, people will have a tough winter, the population will manage. If anything it'll likely strengthen their resolve and deepen their hatred of the Russian military and political leadership.
I would use Google Earth, just input the coordinates, and off she goes.
Deleted.
Support for Bandera is apparently not something the Russian's view favourably.
>A survey by the Democratic Initiative Foundation in April 2021 found that one out of three Ukrainians, 32%, considered Bandera's acts as positive, and just as many took the opposite view.
I suspect that Russian state media broadcast this and also the plight of ethnic Russian people in donbas. That might be enough to keep the war going. We've blocked Russian media, maybe they have done similar for Western media so it's possible they are similarly polarized like the armchair warriors here.
Russia are planning to mobilise 700,000 men before January.
This war isn’t ending anytime soon.
So did I, in north east France very near the German border, smack down the road from the Fulda gap, with bi-annual large-scale NATO exercises (APCs and AMXs laagering in the school parking unannounced, always a highlight) and daily French, US and German fighter/fighter-bomber treetop-level overflights, complete with politically-incorrect-nowadays sonic booms. Besides regular civil security-run nuclear drills and iodine tablet stock-taking at school and at home.
Constantly under the expectation that, if the Reds decided to come, they’d be across in 48 hours or so, wherein the local plod knew perfectly well who ‘kept what kind of undeclared hardware under their floorboards’ and let it slide, under the undeclared policy that it’d be better to have anything and still not need it today, than needing it tomorrow and not having it.
Decades on, I’m back there now, through life’s vagaries and tribulations. And there’s far less concern now, in fact not much of any.
There’s far less reasons to be wary of Russia going nuclear today, over a hot proxy war that it started for essentially kleptocratic purposes and is losing, than there were 40 years ago, when Russia was fighting the West in other hot proxy wars for essentially ideological reasons - without much more success.
Great post. It must have been some spectacle to be there and witness all this as a young person. I wonder how long though after a shooting war broke out would it have gone nuclear. The sheer number of deployed warheads at that time from tactical weapons and up was mind boggling.
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