Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

It is a standard dictator's playbook. It is stupid, but it works — the dictator creates problems, then stokes the fear, misdirecting the cause of the problems (=bad governance or actual malice) to the opponents of the dictator's clique, or towards some marginalized community.

Example: the Bolshevik's government created food shortages that killed millions in the USSR, would they admit that their collectivisation policies failed? Of course not, instead, they used the crisis to confiscate food from, and to deport and kill the very people who could have solved the food crisis — the slightly wealthier peasants ("kulaks").

Why is it stupid? Because even baboons employ the same trick — a baboon "alpha male" sometimes prevents the group from foraging in the best places, to create the artificial shortage of resources so that he can control the group easier. We, the supposed homo sapiens, are supposed to be smarter than baboons, yet somehow leaders that fit the baboon type regularly get into power in many countries.

We know what you mean.

You mean you love Putin and Ukraine should just surrender.

FFS the little coward has had 50 red lines by now and done nothing when all were broken.

Anyone who continues to insist Ukraine should "settle" for peace and the west should stop supporting Ukraine is either trolling, a paid poster or inherently evil.

There's definitely an element of pro-Russian trollery at play.

But the reality is that unconditional victory is not possible for either side and the eventual settlement is going to fall somewhere in the gray zone in between outright Russian annexation and Ukrainian recapture of all their sovereign territory. What shape that will take - I have no idea.

Time for South Korea to get the finger out too.

Well, the "friends of Ukraine" need to be honest with the Ukrainians. They wont fight Russia for Ukraine. They cant replace the losses Ukraine is suffering. They cant provide enough weapons to Ukraine. They cant prevent Ukraine's power being knocked out. Even economic support is dubious given the troubles in Germany.

The "friends of Ukraine" have no realistic plan that can change the direction of the conflict. All they can do is try sabotage any effort at negotiations, as they have done for years. Over which time Ukraine's situation has gotten worse and worse. But still the "friends of Ukraine" insist no negotiations. Fight on to the last Ukrainian.

As for Peskov - obviously freezing the conflict is unacceptable to the Russians. Any talk of trying to negotiate a freeze is purely NATO fantasising. Actual negotiations will need to address the causes of the conflict.

It's without question that Russian intelligence have something on Trump himself or his absolute bell end son, it's the only logical explanation for the fawning and the sheer level of subservience.

outright victory is not necessarily the Goal. Escalation avoidance has frustratingly been the number 1 priority of the western allies since this war began. However It has to be demonstrated that starting wars of aggression on the European continent in the 21st century is a futile and extremely painful exercise. If this fails to deter wars of aggression then clearly Europe needs to shift towards a permanent war type of economy which is something that no one wants.

The acts are tiresome.

Prior to the war there was much more direct support of Putin and his anti-Western viewpoints. Post-war that was more difficult to get away with. So supporters adapted by using a variety of disingenuous techniques, one of these was this act of "being objective", cosplaying that they were objective about the conflict when in reality they held an agenda. There were a lot of giveaways to this, e.g. they would never call out other Putin supporters, and would even thank and support them - all pretty transparent stuff.

Most people are realistic about the war, however many choose, through support of Ukraine to focus on positives.

Putin supporters (and anti-Western types) undermine that support/optimism because it irritates them. Yeah it's that simple in many cases. As mentioned they are careful to disguise that with the "objectivity" mask.

It's all very easy to spot. We've even seen new posters invest weeks and weeks into apparent support for Ukraine, only to rip off the mask and go full Clare Daly.

A lot of hijinks going on.

TLDR it's very easy to tell the difference between an individual who genuinely supports Ukraine and those who don't.

Anyway moving on, Ukraine to receive 4,000 AI assisted drones from Germany, apparently some have already been tested in Donbas. No idea how these perform but should (hopefully) be better than the old Switchblades Ukr got.

https://mil.in.ua/en/news/media-ukraine-to-receive-4000-german-attack-drones-with-artificial-intelligence/

"Once the drone has identified the target and the operator has confirmed it, it is then able to strike autonomously, even if communication is lost, i.e., apparently, a homing system is used at the final part of the flight.

The German publication also states that the range of this kamikaze drone is allegedly four times longer than that of typical Ukrainian counterparts."