Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Lot of bleak reporting from the frontline.

Russia has the wind in their sails and are pushing, Ukrainian soldiers saying they can see the Russians approaching but have no shells to fire and hold them back so they are in retreat mode.

Sounds like the Finns on the Mannerheim line. Plenty of targets but lack of shells.

Interesting

"In an ironic twist, Russia’s wartime box office is being dominated by a blockbuster adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, a film that denounces censorship and was filmed by an American director who is “vocally anti-war”.

One leading film critic, Anton Dolin, told the Guardian it was the “best commercial film ever shot in [Vladimir] Putin’s Russia”. A movie’s runaway success can work against it in Russia now: the film has had to run the gauntlet of pro-Kremlin propagandists and censors, and in true Hollywood fashion it has triumphed against the odds.

Michael Lockshin, the director, said it was “a miracle” the film came out, on a call from Los Angeles where he lives. “It was a very hard journey getting there since the war started,” he said."

"For weeks after its release, Lockshin had mostly avoided the press. The reason was simple: an army of online trolls and pro-Kremlin pundits wanted him arrested and did not like his anti-war views, or the film’s excoriation of totalitarianism, or that some of its estimated $17m (£13m) budget – one of Russia’s largest film budgets ever – came from the state-backed Russian Cinema Fund.

“We know that when someone makes a film now, he is writing or making a film about now,” said Dolin. “And here it’s quite obvious. Because this is a moment in Russia where censorship is rife, and the film is dedicated against censorship and doesn’t obey that censorship is inspiring to audiences.”

Pro-Kremlin Telegram channels have demanded Lockshin be investigated for discrediting the Russian army and called him a terrorist. He has been attacked by Margarita Simonyan, the head of the state-controlled broadcaster RT, and Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most popular pro-Kremlin talkshow hosts. Russian tabloids have published details of where he lives (luckily often wrong) and he has received death threats."

Who is Elensky?

I am hardly an expert on US political system, but I don't think the US President normally has the power to authorise dispatching of whatever ("old") weaponry to whatever country he chooses by personal order, without rest of the system (Congress) getting a say. I don't think it is "the way it is always done".

The US is not a dictatorship (yet!). The President is not a king.

Ukraine is not a formal "ally" of very long standing either. It doesn't have kind of relationship with the US that NATO countries or likes of Israel have, it has not been a constant recipient/purchaser and user of US weapons since basically the end of WW2 (or during WW2, in some cases).

I know you are quite extremely (!) right wing (and maybe just don't want to accept what has happened to the Conservative side of politics in the US), but you can't pin this on Biden or the Dems.

Can argue they have been too cautious and too slow, yes, and should have done far more sooner, and certainly should have realised that US politics might intervene in their plans, but the problem with new aid being frustrated is coming from the other side of the divide over there.

Are these people products of Communist societies in Universities in Ireland?

Eastern Europeans are horrified when entering our Universities to find such societies openly recruiting. To them these are Nazi societies operating and radicalising freely.

Many of the radicalised then equate Putin - Russia with communism of the past and then blindly support Putin.

Edit: there's one I follow on social media who was a product of our Irish university system who posts pro Putin, everything is a Western conspiracy, anti Covid vaccination - that everyone is dying, etc. I think the further physically you get from Russia, when you've no experience only what you learned of communist ideology amongst friends in your formative years tends to imprint on how the idea of Russia must be defended. Then everything else besides Russia is a conspiracy or cover up.

Well no. In fact one of them isn't even in Ireland. He lives in another western European country but I work with him remotely. During Covid he was anti-lockdown, anti-mask and antivaccine. He declared at one point that "Nobody actually died from Covid - they just died with it". On the day Russia invaded he declared that it was all NATO's fault and that Ukraine "had it coming". He would refer to Zelensky as "the comedian" and would, unprompted, discuss how the Ruble was going from strength to strength. He's extremely intelligent (a rational analytical type) but also quite arrogant so all of his opinions are the only correct ones in his mind - so there's no point in engaging in any kind of discourse on these topics with him. If you point out the flaws in any of his arguments he simply deflects and engages in whataboutery. He also gets very emotional (mostly angry) when talking about these things.

It's just easier to ask him about the weather at this point. I NEVER bring up current affairs with him anymore.

It’s incredible that Christian fundamentalism in America and communist fanciers in Academia are now all singing from the same hymn sheet .

Even our chief champagne socialist in residence Micky D gave a very limp wristed statement on Navalny’s death. Like something written with chat GPT. ( which it probably was)

The world is gone to hell.

A glimmer of hope here that may stem the tide until congress gets its **** together.

and

The EU also needs to get it's finger out and allow EU funds to be used to purchase shells from outside the EU.

It will cost well over 4 billion to purchase them at 'market' price. Canada pledged $30mil, enough for 4,300 shells. That's the figures involved, it's staggering. The EU should just purchase them outright. Say it's for backfilling stocks but countries are free to donate or loan to Ukraine. Be a little EU lend lease etc...

There needs to be more creative approaches for getting arms in Ukraine hands ASAP.

Some of that anger may be at themselves but I think there is another theory worth considering.

In her recent excellent book, Doppelganger, Naomi Klein delves deep into the world of disinformation (inspired by Naomi Wolfe, who she is often confused with, embracing those kinds of beliefs.) Klein observes that the modern western world has been hollowed over the past 40 years so that large corporations and the ultra rich have benefited at the expense of the general population. People are more educated than ever but are struggling to buy houses, pay for healthcare and childcare. They're spending more time alone and online where they are often bombarded by idyllic images of the lives of the rich and famous. At the same time the Climate Breakdown is accelerating and political instability seems to be growing around the world.

In short. Things are not going well. This is the root of a lot of people's anger. They know this to be true. They should be angry. They should be angry with system that encourages the concept of "unlimited growth" which is often built on the backs of some of the poorest people in the world and whose fruits disproportionately go to those at the very top. Unfortunately that system that often hijacks politics and media in order to deflect attention elsewhere. So instead peoples anger is instead focused on all sorts of other things.

Nothing but grim news about Ukraine… the republicans really sunk them…..how can they sleep at night

When I say backfill, I really mean, use EU funding to purchase those 500k rounds to replace EU countries stocks. If individual countries think they don't need them, they would still be free to transfer them to Ukraine.

Key point being, just get them into the EU in the first place. Use the fact that EU stocks are depleted as the excuse to release funding. Then again some countries will just veto it as they don't want money leaving the EU.