Thread: How dangerous is Vladimir Putin?

Originally Posted by OhOh

One presumes you include the other countries in such things .

Why does one presume such stupid shit?

Who else has invaded and annexed sovereign territory recently?

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Sounds like Vlad (the fucking tosspot! - $100) is engineering an excuse to invade and annex yet more of Ukraine's territory

history is our guide...

In 2002, Russia gave citizenship to locals in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two separatist regions that Georgia claims as its own. Six years later, Russia invaded Georgia, citing, among other reasons, the protection of Russian citizens. Similarly, it recognized as Russians residents of Crimea, the Ukrainian region it annexed in 2014.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...common/588160/

Originally Posted by raycarey

history is our guide...



https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...common/588160/

One knows that HoHo doesn't like these facts being repeated because they exposed Vlad's (you ratfaced wanker! - $75) real intentions.

A Syrian example:

Unprecedented investigation reveals US-led Coalition killed more than 1,600 civilians in Raqqa ‘death trap’

"The US-led military Coalition must end almost two years of denial about the massive civilian death toll and destruction it unleashed in the Syrian city of Raqqa, Amnesty International and Airwars said today as they launched a new data project on the offensive to oust the armed group calling itself “Islamic State” (IS).The interactive website, Rhetoric versus Reality: How the ‘most precise air campaign in history’ left Raqqa the most destroyed city in modern times, is the most comprehensive investigation into civilian deaths in a modern conflict. Collating almost two years of investigations, it gives a brutally vivid account of more than 1,600 civilian lives lost as a direct result of thousands of US, UK and French air strikes and tens of thousands of US artillery strikes in the Coalition’s military campaign in Raqqa from June to October 2017.

By the time the offensive began, the IS had ruled Raqqa for almost four years. It had perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity, torturing or killing anyone who dared oppose it. Amnesty International previously documented how IS used civilians as human shields, mined exit routes, set up checkpoints to restrict movement, and shot at those trying to flee.

“Thousands of civilians were killed or injured in the US-led Coalition’s offensive to rid Raqqa of IS, whose snipers and mines had turned the city into a death trap. Many of the air bombardments were inaccurate and tens of thousands of artillery strikes were indiscriminate, so it is no surprise they killed and injured many hundreds of civilians,” said Donatella Rovera, Senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International.

“Coalition forces razed Raqqa, but they cannot erase the truth. Amnesty International and Airwars call upon the Coalition forces to end their denial about the shocking scale of civilian deaths and destruction caused by their offensive in Raqqa.”
“The Coalition needs to fully investigate what went wrong at Raqqa and learn from those lessons, to prevent inflicting such tremendous suffering on civilians caught in future military operations,” said Chris Woods, Director of Airwars.

Cutting-edge research on the ground in Raqqa and from afar
Amnesty International and Airwars have collated and cross-referenced multiple data streams for this investigation.
On four visits since the battle was still raging, Amnesty International researchers spent a total of around two months on the ground in Raqqa, carrying out site investigations at more than 200 strike locations and interviewing more than 400 witnesses and survivors.

Amnesty International’s innovative “Strike Trackers” project also identified when each of the more than 11,000 destroyed buildings in Raqqa was hit. More than 3,000 digital activists in 124 countries took part, analyzing a total of more than 2 million satellite image frames. The organization’s Digital Verification Corps, based at six universities around the world, analyzed and authenticated video footage captured during the battle.

Airwars and Amnesty International researchers analyzed open-source evidence, both in real-time and after the battle – including thousands of social media posts and other material – to build a database of more than 1,600 civilians reportedly killed in Coalition strikes. The organizations have gathered names for more than 1,000 of the victims; Amnesty International has directly verified 641 of those on the ground in Raqqa, and there are very strong multiple source reports for the rest.
Both organizations have frequently shared their findings with the US-led military Coalition and with the US, UK and French governments. As a result, the Coalition has admitted responsibility for killing 159 civilians – around 10% of the total number reported – but it has routinely dismissed the remainder as “non-credible.” However, to date the Coalition has failed to adequately probe civilian casualty reports or to interview witnesses and survivors, admitting it does not carry out site investigations.

Daphne Eviatar, the Director of Security With Human Rights at Amnesty International stated “as the USA awaits a yearly reporting from the Trump administration on civilian casualties, we hope to finally see an honest assessment of the devastating impact that US lethal strikes have had on the civilians in Raqqa. The public deserves to know how many civilian casualties our government is responsible for, and the survivors deserve acknowledgement, reparations, where appropriate, and meaningful assistance to rebuild their lives.”

Bringing cases to life
Rhetoric versus Reality brings to life the stories of families who lived and died in the war by taking users on a journey through the city; meeting survivors, hearing their testimonies and visiting their destroyed homes. From the bombed-out bridges spanning the Euphrates to the largely demolished old city near the central stadium, no neighborhood was spared.

Developed with Holoscribe’s creative team, the interactive website combines photographs, videos, 360-degree immersive experiences, satellite imagery, maps and data visualizations to highlight the cases and journeys of civilians caught under the Coalition’s bombardment. Users can also explore data on civilians who were killed, many of them after having fled from place to place across the city.

Entire city blocks flattened
Raqqa’s soaring civilian death toll is unsurprising given the Coalition’s relentless barrage of munitions that were inaccurate to the point of being indiscriminate when used near civilians.
One US military official boasted about firing 30,000 artillery rounds during the campaign – the equivalent of a strike every six minutes, for four months straight – surpassing the amount of artillery used in any conflict since the Viet Nam war. With a margin of error of more than 100 metres, unguided artillery is notoriously imprecise and its use in populated areas constitutes indiscriminate attacks.

One of the first neighborhoods to be targeted was Dara’iya, a low-rise, poorer district in western Raqqa.

In a ramshackle, half-destroyed house, Fatima, nine years old at the time, described how she lost three of her siblings and her mother, Aziza, when the Coalition rained volleys of artillery shells down on their neighborhood on the morning of 10 June 2017. They were among 16 civilians killed on that street on that day alone. Fatima lost her right leg and her left leg was badly injured. She now uses a wheelchair donated by an NGO to get around and her only wish is to go to school.

Families wiped out in an instant

US, UK and French forces also launched thousands of air strikes into civilian neighborhoods, scores of which resulted in mass civilian casualties.
In one tragic incident, a Coalition air strike destroyed an entire five-story residential building near Maari school in the central Harat al-Badu neighborhood in the early evening of 25 September 2017. Four families were sheltering in the basement at the time. Almost all of them – at least 32 civilians, including 20 children – were killed. A week later, a further 27 civilians – including many relatives of those killed in the earlier strike – were also killed when an air strike destroyed a nearby building.

“Planes were bombing and rockets were falling 24 hours a day, and there were IS snipers everywhere. You just couldn’t breathe,” one survivor of the 25 September strike, Ayat Mohammed Jasem, told a TV crew when she returned to her destroyed home more than a year later.

“I saw my son die, burnt in the rubble in front of me. I’ve lost everyone who was dear to me. My four children, my husband, my mother, my sister, my whole family. Wasn’t the goal to free the civilians? They were supposed to save us, to save our children.”

Time for accountability

Many of the cases documented by Amnesty International likely amount to violations of international humanitarian law and warrant further investigation.
Despite their best efforts, NGOs like Amnesty International and Airwars will never have the resources to investigate the full extent of civilian deaths and injuries in Raqqa. The organizations are urging US-led Coalition members to put in place an independent, impartial mechanism to effectively and promptly investigate reports of civilian harm, including violations of international humanitarian law, and make the findings public.
Coalition members who carried out the strikes, notably the USA, the UK and France, must be transparent about their tactics, specific means and methods of attack, choice of targets, and precautions taken in the planning and execution of their attacks.

Coalition members must create a fund to ensure that victims and their families receive full reparation and compensation."

https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/unprecedented-investigation-reveals-us-led-coalition-killed-more-than-1600-civilians-in-raqqa-death-trap/

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...rn-times-study

Originally Posted by OhOh

Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, :........:

Albania[15]

Belgium[16]

Bulgaria[17]

Canada[18]

Croatia[19]

Czech Republic[20]

Denmark[21]

Estonia[22]

France[23]

Germany[24]

Greece[25]

Hungary[26]

Iceland[27]

Italy[28][Note 1]

Latvia[29]

Lithuania[30]

Luxembourg[31]

Montenegro[32]

Netherlands[33]

Norway[34]

Poland[35]

Portugal[36]

Romania[37]

Slovakia[38]

Slovenia[39]

Spain[40]

Turkey[41]

United Kingdom[42]

An unexceptional "state" north of Mexico Saudi Arabia Qatar UAE Turkey Australia

Venezuela:

UK
Australia
NZ
Canada
An unexceptional "state" north of Mexico

Do you not know the meaning of the word "annexed" then?

Originally Posted by OhOh

A Syrian example:

Unprecedented investigation reveals US-led Coalition killed more than 1,600 civilians in Raqqa ‘death trap’

"The US-led military Coalition must end almost two years of denial about the massive civilian death toll and destruction it unleashed in the Syrian city of Raqqa, Amnesty International and Airwars said today as they launched a new data project on the offensive to oust the armed group calling itself “Islamic State” (IS).The interactive website, Rhetoric versus Reality: How the ‘most precise air campaign in history’ left Raqqa the most destroyed city in modern times, is the most comprehensive investigation into civilian deaths in a modern conflict. Collating almost two years of investigations, it gives a brutally vivid account of more than 1,600 civilian lives lost as a direct result of thousands of US, UK and French air strikes and tens of thousands of US artillery strikes in the Coalition’s military campaign in Raqqa from June to October 2017.

By the time the offensive began, the IS had ruled Raqqa for almost four years. It had perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity, torturing or killing anyone who dared oppose it. Amnesty International previously documented how IS used civilians as human shields, mined exit routes, set up checkpoints to restrict movement, and shot at those trying to flee.

“Thousands of civilians were killed or injured in the US-led Coalition’s offensive to rid Raqqa of IS, whose snipers and mines had turned the city into a death trap. Many of the air bombardments were inaccurate and tens of thousands of artillery strikes were indiscriminate, so it is no surprise they killed and injured many hundreds of civilians,” said Donatella Rovera, Senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International.

“Coalition forces razed Raqqa, but they cannot erase the truth. Amnesty International and Airwars call upon the Coalition forces to end their denial about the shocking scale of civilian deaths and destruction caused by their offensive in Raqqa.”
“The Coalition needs to fully investigate what went wrong at Raqqa and learn from those lessons, to prevent inflicting such tremendous suffering on civilians caught in future military operations,” said Chris Woods, Director of Airwars.

Cutting-edge research on the ground in Raqqa and from afar
Amnesty International and Airwars have collated and cross-referenced multiple data streams for this investigation.
On four visits since the battle was still raging, Amnesty International researchers spent a total of around two months on the ground in Raqqa, carrying out site investigations at more than 200 strike locations and interviewing more than 400 witnesses and survivors.

Amnesty International’s innovative “Strike Trackers” project also identified when each of the more than 11,000 destroyed buildings in Raqqa was hit. More than 3,000 digital activists in 124 countries took part, analyzing a total of more than 2 million satellite image frames. The organization’s Digital Verification Corps, based at six universities around the world, analyzed and authenticated video footage captured during the battle.

Airwars and Amnesty International researchers analyzed open-source evidence, both in real-time and after the battle – including thousands of social media posts and other material – to build a database of more than 1,600 civilians reportedly killed in Coalition strikes. The organizations have gathered names for more than 1,000 of the victims; Amnesty International has directly verified 641 of those on the ground in Raqqa, and there are very strong multiple source reports for the rest.
Both organizations have frequently shared their findings with the US-led military Coalition and with the US, UK and French governments. As a result, the Coalition has admitted responsibility for killing 159 civilians – around 10% of the total number reported – but it has routinely dismissed the remainder as “non-credible.” However, to date the Coalition has failed to adequately probe civilian casualty reports or to interview witnesses and survivors, admitting it does not carry out site investigations.

Daphne Eviatar, the Director of Security With Human Rights at Amnesty International stated “as the USA awaits a yearly reporting from the Trump administration on civilian casualties, we hope to finally see an honest assessment of the devastating impact that US lethal strikes have had on the civilians in Raqqa. The public deserves to know how many civilian casualties our government is responsible for, and the survivors deserve acknowledgement, reparations, where appropriate, and meaningful assistance to rebuild their lives.”

Bringing cases to life
Rhetoric versus Reality brings to life the stories of families who lived and died in the war by taking users on a journey through the city; meeting survivors, hearing their testimonies and visiting their destroyed homes. From the bombed-out bridges spanning the Euphrates to the largely demolished old city near the central stadium, no neighborhood was spared.

Developed with Holoscribe’s creative team, the interactive website combines photographs, videos, 360-degree immersive experiences, satellite imagery, maps and data visualizations to highlight the cases and journeys of civilians caught under the Coalition’s bombardment. Users can also explore data on civilians who were killed, many of them after having fled from place to place across the city.

Entire city blocks flattened
Raqqa’s soaring civilian death toll is unsurprising given the Coalition’s relentless barrage of munitions that were inaccurate to the point of being indiscriminate when used near civilians.
One US military official boasted about firing 30,000 artillery rounds during the campaign – the equivalent of a strike every six minutes, for four months straight – surpassing the amount of artillery used in any conflict since the Viet Nam war. With a margin of error of more than 100 metres, unguided artillery is notoriously imprecise and its use in populated areas constitutes indiscriminate attacks.

One of the first neighborhoods to be targeted was Dara’iya, a low-rise, poorer district in western Raqqa.

In a ramshackle, half-destroyed house, Fatima, nine years old at the time, described how she lost three of her siblings and her mother, Aziza, when the Coalition rained volleys of artillery shells down on their neighborhood on the morning of 10 June 2017. They were among 16 civilians killed on that street on that day alone. Fatima lost her right leg and her left leg was badly injured. She now uses a wheelchair donated by an NGO to get around and her only wish is to go to school.

Families wiped out in an instant

US, UK and French forces also launched thousands of air strikes into civilian neighborhoods, scores of which resulted in mass civilian casualties.
In one tragic incident, a Coalition air strike destroyed an entire five-story residential building near Maari school in the central Harat al-Badu neighborhood in the early evening of 25 September 2017. Four families were sheltering in the basement at the time. Almost all of them – at least 32 civilians, including 20 children – were killed. A week later, a further 27 civilians – including many relatives of those killed in the earlier strike – were also killed when an air strike destroyed a nearby building.

“Planes were bombing and rockets were falling 24 hours a day, and there were IS snipers everywhere. You just couldn’t breathe,” one survivor of the 25 September strike, Ayat Mohammed Jasem, told a TV crew when she returned to her destroyed home more than a year later.

“I saw my son die, burnt in the rubble in front of me. I’ve lost everyone who was dear to me. My four children, my husband, my mother, my sister, my whole family. Wasn’t the goal to free the civilians? They were supposed to save us, to save our children.”

Time for accountability

Many of the cases documented by Amnesty International likely amount to violations of international humanitarian law and warrant further investigation.
Despite their best efforts, NGOs like Amnesty International and Airwars will never have the resources to investigate the full extent of civilian deaths and injuries in Raqqa. The organizations are urging US-led Coalition members to put in place an independent, impartial mechanism to effectively and promptly investigate reports of civilian harm, including violations of international humanitarian law, and make the findings public.
Coalition members who carried out the strikes, notably the USA, the UK and France, must be transparent about their tactics, specific means and methods of attack, choice of targets, and precautions taken in the planning and execution of their attacks.

Coalition members must create a fund to ensure that victims and their families receive full reparation and compensation."

https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/unprecedented-investigation-reveals-us-led-coalition-killed-more-than-1600-civilians-in-raqqa-death-trap/

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-...rn-times-study

It's actually quite pathetic that you would make such a kerfuffle over the alleged death of 1,600 civilians in Syria when Assad and Putin are responsible for probably 100 times that while you sit there with your tongue stuck firmly up Vlad's (queer c u n t! - $350) arsehole.

Russia ready to replace American F-35s with own Su-57s if Ankara’s deal with US fails
May 3 2019

Russia’s fifth-generation Su-57 fighter jets could be sold to Turkey if Ankara’s F-35 deal with the US fails, the chief of a Russian state tech corporation said as Washington halts plane deliveries following the S-400 standoff.

Sukhoi’s “fifth-generation Russian fighter jets [Su-57s] have outstanding qualities, and show promise for export,” Sergey Chemezov, head of a Russia’s state-owned defense conglomerate, Rostec, told Anadolu on Thursday.

Moscow is “ready to cooperate” if Ankara shows interest in purchasing the Russian planes, he added.

The official hinted that Russia may greenlight the potential new deal if Turkey ditches the F-35 program with the Americans – a prospect which has generated intense speculation in recent weeks.



Washington initially agreed to sell Ankara 100 of its F-35 fighter jets, produced by Lockheed Martin and valued at $100 million each, but later halted delivery.

The future of the perennial cooperation is up in the air as the Pentagon says that the F-35 deal is “incompatible” with Turkey’s plans to buy S-400 air defense systems from Moscow.

Turkey in turn insists that the Russian surface-to-air anti-missile systems pose no threat to NATO systems and has indicated that it will be looking for a “plan B” if the deal with US falls apart.

Ankara, being a F-35 key buyer, is also manufacturing parts for the aircraft and has invested $1.25 billion to date in the project. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan asserted that the whole F-35 program is “bound to collapse” without Turkish input.

Meanwhile, Chemezov said Russia is set to complete its S-400 deliveries, under the 2017 deal, by the end of this year and suggested that Turkey may be interested in the new-generation S-500 system which would be “without equal throughout the world.”

Su-57, Russia’s newest and only 5th generation supersonic stealth fighter jet made its maiden flight in 2010 and, since then, has been deployed for an anti-terrorist mission in Syria.

Amusing video of Putin going arse over tit.

I knew you were going to post that video here on TD, as soon as I saw it on the BBC

you are so predictable

at least he knows how to fall, with style

Originally Posted by Dragonfly

you are so predictable

???
Predictable? I thought it's called "obsessed"...

Give the guy credit for doing his own stunts. Russia's version of Tom Cruise.

Originally Posted by Agent_Smith

Give the guy credit for doing his own stunts. Russia's version of Tom Cruise.

The bloke who laid the carpet is in a shallow grave in Murmansk by now, glowing in the dark from the cup of Putin tea he was made to drink.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

The bloke who laid the carpet is in a shallow grave in Murmansk by now, glowing in the dark from the cup of Putin tea he was made to drink.

conspiracy alert

Some knows better who to fight...

Hey up, Vlad is getting his own chat show on the Beeb.

However, by the looks of it, no tea on set. Presumably that is to protect the guests.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Hey up, Vlad is getting his own chat show on the Beeb.

One suspects mysterious outbreaks of sickness, failing power supplies and soggy biscuits will be common.

Originally Posted by OhOh

One suspects mysterious outbreaks of sickness, failing power supplies and soggy biscuits will be common.

I think you mean "mysterious interference on BBC broadcasts reachable in Russia".

Whatever you think of Vladimir, you gotta give him credit for his achievements on disabling the West.

Crimea, Trump, Brexit. Soon, he'll probably get Ukraine back under full Russian control.

The guy is masterful at pulling strings and disrupting Western democracies.

Anything else we should add to the list?

Originally Posted by Agent_Smith

Anything else we should add to the list?

Recovering the state after nearly collapsing in 90ties...

Originally Posted by Agent_Smith

Whatever you think of Vladimir, you gotta give him credit for his achievements on disabling the West.

Crimea, Trump, Brexit. Soon, he'll probably get Ukraine back under full Russian control.

The guy is masterful at pulling strings and disrupting Western democracies.

Anything else we should add to the list?

Stealing tens of billions of dollars from his country without recourse.

He's been absolutely exceptional at that.

Oh, and effectively neutering any political opposition.

Obviously the two are related.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Stealing tens of billions of dollars from his country without recourse.

He's been absolutely exceptional at that.

Oh, and effectively neutering any political opposition.

How absolutely exceptional it is... (since he hasn't brought the billions to UK...)

^And what's more:
Victoria Nuland denied Russian visa

23.05.2019

Former US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland was blacklisted, and therefore could not get a Russian visa and come to Moscow for a closed international conference. One of the organizers of the event was Johns Hopkins University - one of the largest contractors in the US military-industrial complex.

Russia banned the entry of the former US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland , who intended to take part in a conference organized by a number of Russian and Western organizations in Moscow.

The former diplomat requested a Russian visa to participate in a closed international conference organized by the Russian International Affairs Council (INF), the German Foreign Policy Society (DGAP) and the John Hopkins University Advanced International Studies School (SAIS).

The event took place in Moscow on May 20–21. However, Nuland was not able to attend it, since she was blacklisted in response to anti-Russian personal sanctions of the United States, leads the Kommersant publication of a comment by the Russian Foreign Ministry .

It is worth noting that Johns Hopkins University has long been among the twenty largest contractors in the US military-industrial complex for military research and development.

At the beginning of this month, the director of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said that the threats of the former commander of NATO forces , James Stavridis, to prohibit Russian artists and athletes from entering the US are "not even funny."

https://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2019/...12372907.shtml