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Threabanned posters:
brickstser69
slay55
mulbot
Even when you think the Russians can't sink to a new low
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/band-brothers-how-war-crushed-cohort-young-ukrainians-2025-12-01/
The article for others to read while you continue to lament russias anger as Ukraine continues to drive out corruption. I don't imagine russia will be getting much if anything back given what they illegally seized in russia.
(and the facile attempts at slandering ex-comedian Zelensky while having your nose firmly attached to an authoritarian dictators rear).
Nato chief being a knave.
Absolutely. Also Stalin learned to trust his Generals to run the war and avoided getting involved in the minute details. They still used the human wave tactics for much of the war though.
Reuters ran an article a few days back which highlights the reality of the losses Ukraine is suffering, titled "Band of brothers: how the war crushed a cohort of young Ukrainians".
They tracked a few dozen young Ukrainian volunteers who signed up to fight in March 2025. They were given a short training course and then sent directly to the frontline. By November 2025 (8 months later), Reuters could only track down 11 of them - 4 were seriously wounded, 3 are MIA (officially at least), 2 are AWOL, 1 is sick and the 11th killed himself. Of the others on the training course Reuters could find no evidence of their fate. The Ukrainian military refused to co-operate with Reuters on the status of the missing men: there was a line in the article where the wife of one of the survivors said the experience was very tough on her husband because "Almost all his fellow servicemen disappeared", which implies the men Reuters cannot track down are likely dead.
These young men were part of recruitment campaign Ukraine launched in February to encourage young Ukrainians who weren't subject to conscription to volunteer to fight, promising financial benefits and excellent training. It largely failed, only attracting a few hundred volunteers. They were rushed through training and thrown straight into a fight against an enemy with a massive advantage in firepower, tactics, training, numbers and leadership.
Meanwhile Yermak and others in Zelensky's circle continued to profit. It seems the madcap scheme of stealing the Russian funds at Euroclear has been dealt a final blow with the ECB refusing to cover the certain losses Euroclear would face when taken to court. Reports are that funding for Ukraine will dry up at some time in February/March 2026 and Europe is struggling to find any more money - hence the desperate theft scheme. The recent spurt of corruption investigations appears to be an internal Ukrainian struggle to grab control of the remaining money before it finally runs out.
Yermak has said he will go to the front, but this seems to be another cynical trick. Ukrainian law allows for investigations of crime to be suspended (for the duration of the conflict) if the suspect joins the military. So Yermak will find a spot on some military units personnel list, escaping any further investigation, while never actually risking his life.
same as Trump/ Putin
Yeah and it's straight back to what matters. The battlefield. Trump isn't happy with his gains and without the rest of the Donbass he can't sell a propaganda victory for the Russians. This is the bare minimum he'll want but I suspect he'll want everything east of the Dnipro.
Either a naive fool who thinks he can change Trump's mind through flattery.
Or a cynic who butters up his paymaster because he doesn't want to lose his cushy illustrious job and all the free travel.
I suspect the latter.
This encapsulates his attitude to Soviet political leadeership
This was similar in WW2, just shows Russian "tactics" haven't evolved a great deal beyond feeding meat to the grinder.
At least back then they had a guy like Zhukov running the show who wasn’t afraid to put the boss right. Apparently, he would actually argue with Stalin, normally a capital offence.
The people who run social media have a Harry Lime view of the world with the little dots way, way below:
not really as they are being picked off by drones, who's operators are most likely 5-10km away, under cover…
Russia have nothing else left in their war plan booklet…
He still thinks buttering up Trump will cause him to change his mind.
Not to say there are not some dreadful people within our country when it comes to basically supporting the Russian dictatorship but its been interesting recently I have seen a number of articles on how many of the social media accounts that make the kind of posts your referencing are coming from outside Ireland. A great deal coming from the US and the UK. I have said it before but it bears repeating, allowing social media to behave in the manner they have facing no consequences of note for deliberately fostering and promoting hate with essentially impunity is one of the gravest threats that free open and democratic societies face today.
I see NATOs chief is praising Trump again for the breakthrough in the Ukraine war. What is this guys agenda??
another reason, I assume, in sending these ‘gunless’ soldiers forward is to smoke out where the Ukr are shooting from
The thing that gets me about these powerful people is that they don't seem to give a sh*t about how they're remembered. I was listening to a podcast about Neville Chamberlain recently. He's not remembered fondly for obvious reasons but all he was trying to do was to avoid a whole generation of people getting slaughtered. It's not like the Nazis had paid him off or he was a moron or anything.
Chamberlain was a successful industrialist. This is the equivalent these days:
Nice one.
There's too many men, too many people making too many problems. And not much love to go around.
Sadly that's probably close to the truth. The current US administration is pretty much equally disgusting as the Russian one. Pathetic old men with no humanity, no values beyond greed and power
Makes more sense now that Trump sent his son-in-law "business man" to the talks
Rest assured that Witkoff and Kushner will get their travel expenses. The whole performance defies belief. It’s so blatant.
Within part 14 of the "plan" it was stated that "$100 billion in frozen Russian assets will be invested in US-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine; the US will receive 50% of the profits from this venture."
I wonder who will in "the US" will be receiving that 50% of future Ukrainian profits?
Remember when we thought Putin was a shrewd geopolitical operator, brilliantly pulling the strings from Moscow? I did. What a dolt he has turned out to be, stupidly running his country into the ground. And for what? His former KGB bosses were right to pass him over for promotion.
Russia and Trump's America have some neck pointing to Ukrainian corruption but it’s par for the course with them. Bear in mind that Ukraine is a Soviet republic in recovery, born with corruption and struggling to throw off that poisonous legacy ever since. Yermak is being investigated by Ukraine at a horribly inconvenient time but they went ahead with it anyway. By contrast, corruption is obligatory in Russia’s elite. Nobody is allowed to have clean hands. And what can we say of Trump? He has already enriched himself to a level that puts him in the first rank of kleptocrats in human history.
Because quite apart from the 'peace' they pretend to care about, the current US administration are actually trying to rustle up 'business deals' to enrich themselves, which is ultimately their main motivation.
When it comes to negotiations Putin is a wind-up toy that says the same thing every time. Even compared to the other thieves who run Russia he stands out as a terrible burden for the country to carry. It’s a real stroke of luck that the Russians hid so much money away in Europe and can’t get at it at the moment.
At this stage it's hard to know how stupid these people are. The talks keep failing because of Russia's ridiculous demands, why do they even keep meeting? We all want genuine progress and peace, but these summits are just going nowhere, why do they keep repeating them?
I actually think when it comes to algorithm TikTok is vastly superior. I have an account and all mine shows me is games, football, funny **** and animals. I do tend to get the odd political one but it's either about something I agree with or something neutral.
If you do interact with MAGA/conspiracy theory/… nonsense it will keep feeding it to you but it's imo also very good in hiding it if you made it clear you're not interested.