Play Nice The NM Devils Chessboard thread.

[B4Bear]

I guess that is why Hilary Clinton never got elected.

Of course this is a terrible thing, but really what else was Putin gonna do? He didn't really have any option. NO Russian leader could tolerate NATO bases on the border and expect to keep their job. They might even get shot if they did.

NATO was the excuse for what he has been wanting to do since Georgia in 2008.

This was never about NATO. The Russian armed forces know it isn’t about that too.

 

[B4Bear]

Russia does not have a good track record against Finland. And the Swedes would eat him alive if he tried this shit with them.

Anyone else he feels like threatening him today? For every announcement and threat he makes, the more countries are resolved to **** him up.

And Sweden is not even on their border.

 

[ferball]

NATO was the excuse for what he has been wanting to do since Georgia in 2008.

This was never about NATO. The Russian armed forces know it isn’t about that too.

Well what is it about then?

 

[B4Bear]

Well what is it about then?

He loathes the West and wants them/us to pay for the fall of the USSR. And what do powerful people want? Why more power of course.

Then we have this little gem from a few days ago:

In a speech on 21 February, Putin accused the Ukrainian society of having become neo-Nazi, adding that Russia's aim was to demilitarise and "de-Nazify" Ukraine.[91][92][93] According to press reports, Putin was using false 'Nazi' narrative to justify Russia's attack on Ukraine, while there is no widespread support for far-right ideology in the government, military, or electorate, and no far-right candidates won a single seat in the Rada, the national legislature, during the 2019 parliamentary elections.[94][93] Both President Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal are Jewish, making Ukraine one of two countries in the world to have both a Jewish head of state and head of government, the other being Israel.[95][96]Addressing the Russian claim specifically, Zelenskyy stated his grandfather served in the Soviet Army fighting against the Nazis;[97] he also lost three family members in the Holocaust.[98] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum condemned the invasion and Putin's abuse of Holocaust history as a justification for war.[99][96]

Russian invasion of Ukraine - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

He wants client states like Belarus that he can control and intimidate. It is power and a desire to recreate what was lost in 1991.

 

[Sopwiths North]

Well what is it about then?

It's about outdated imperialism being enforced by a dictator. And it shouldn't be happening to a multicultural, progressive, democratically leaning nation like Ukraine in 2022.

Putin wrote a manifesto last summer that describes Russians and Ukrainians as "one people". It denies Ukraine's existence as an independent nation. It's required reading for the Russian military. He is now exercising his own imperialist manifesto, as all good dictators do.

 

[big_e]

Formula One is out, too.

 

[Sopwiths North]

There's some members of Parliament, who've armed themselves, and the President himself who refuses to leave, and all are standing their ground in Kyiv tonight. I pray they make it through this thing alive.

 

[Val Keating]

Member of the Russian communist party. Putin might actually be in trouble here. Everyone is turning against him.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

The war mythos are starting to appear:

Redirect Notice

www.google.com.au

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

Badly outgunned:

Redirect Notice

www.google.com.au

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6364051

Intense fighting in Kyiv outskirts as Russia, Ukraine signal possibility of talks​

Russian and Ukrainian forces clashed on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital on Saturday as authorities urged citizens to help defend the city from advancing Russian forces in the worst European security crisis in decades.

Heavy, frequent artillery fire and intense gunfire, apparently some distance from the city centre, could be heard in Kyiv in the early hours, a Reuters witness said. The Ukrainian military said Russian troops attacked an army base on a main Kyiv avenue but the assault was repelled.
But even as the fighting grew more intense, the Russian and Ukrainian governments signaled an openness to negotiations, offering the first glimmer of hope for diplomacy since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion on Thursday.

"The fate of Ukraine is being decided right now," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday in a video address posted to his Telegram channel. "Tonight, they will launch an assault. All of us must understand what awaits us. We must withstand this night."
The air force command reported heavy fighting near the air base at Vasylkiv southwest of the capital, which it said was under attack from Russian paratroopers.

It also said one of its fighters had shot down a Russian transport plane. Reuters could not independently verify the claims.

Kyiv under siege​

Kyiv residents were told by the Defence Ministry to make petrol bombs to repel the invaders, as witnesses reported hearing artillery rounds and intense gunfire from the western part of the city.

Some families cowered in shelters after Kyiv was pounded on Thursday night by Russian missiles. Others tried desperately to get on packed trains headed west, some of the hundreds of thousands who have left their homes to find safety, according to the UN aid chief.
But amid the chaos of war came a ray of hope.

A spokesperson for Zelensky said Ukraine and Russia would consult in coming hours on a time and place for talks.

The Kremlin said earlier it offered to meet in the Belarusian capital Minsk after Ukraine expressed a willingness to discuss declaring itself a neutral country while Ukraine had proposed Warsaw as the venue. That, according to Russian spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, resulted in a "pause" in contacts.

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"Ukraine was and remains ready to talk about a ceasefire and peace," Zelensky's spokesperson, Sergii Nykyforov, said in a post on Facebook. "We agreed to the proposal of the President of the Russian Federation."

But U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Russia's offer was an attempt to conduct diplomacy "at the barrel of a gun" and that Putin's military must stop bombing Ukraine if it was serious about negotiations.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

 

[andana]

 

[B4Bear]

And is anyone surprised by this barbaric behaviour. Russia does not, and never has abided by the Geneva Convention or the laws of armed conflict.

For the entirety of the last 300 years they have proven themselves to be murderous thugs, regardless of whom they are fighting.

 

[Val Keating]

I’d be careful of that video. A lot are saying it’s actually a Ukrainian tank trying to avoid Russian forces. Don’t know what version is true.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

I’d be careful of that video. A lot are saying it’s actually a Ukrainian tank trying to avoid Russian forces. Don’t know what version is true.

Yea, it doesn't look entirely deliberate to me whether it's Russian or Ukrainian.

 

[Val Keating]

Yea, it doesn't look entirely deliberate to me whether it's Russian or Ukrainian.

There’s been loads of bogus videos from years ago too. It’s really hard to siphon the fake stuff.

 

[ferball]

Member of the Russian communist party. Putin might actually be in trouble here. Everyone is turning against him.

View attachment 1334596

There have been big protests in Moscow apparently and heaps of people arrested by cops.

 

[Val Keating]

There have been big protests in Moscow apparently and heaps of people arrested by cops.

Yeah. Very brave of them. Last time something like this happened they used live rounds.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

‘Father of all bombs’: Russia’s brutal weapon

It’s one of war’s most brutal weapons. It pulls oxygen out of the air. The resulting blast is second only to a nuclear bomb. And Russia’s using it against Ukraine.

www.news.com.au

 

[B4Bear]

Asking for a thug:

How do you de-nazifi a Jew?

 

[Makeshift Park]

He’s the ballsiest goddamn comedian I’ve ever seen.

 

[ferball]

It's about outdated imperialism being enforced by a dictator. And it shouldn't be happening to a multicultural, progressive, democratically leaning nation like Ukraine in 2022.

Putin wrote a manifesto last summer that describes Russians and Ukrainians as "one people". It denies Ukraine's existence as an independent nation. It's required reading for the Russian military. He is now exercising his own imperialist manifesto, as all good dictators do.

He was pushed into this by a decade of US foreign policy, and as is typical of people implementing US foreign policy they don't give a **** about the carnage they leave in their wake. They'll be cheering this like nothing else. Its certainly good payback for Syria.

Ukaraine, Belarus and Russia are the same people. They all descended from people known as the Kievan Rus over the last 1200 years.

 

[ferball]

‘Father of all bombs’: Russia’s brutal weapon

It’s one of war’s most brutal weapons. It pulls oxygen out of the air. The resulting blast is second only to a nuclear bomb. And Russia’s using it against Ukraine.

www.news.com.au

Remember when "we" had one of those and used it Afghanistan? How cool was that?