Ukraine war mega thread

[pickel]

Does that include the mercenaries?

The Wagner Group aren't American.

[kingwilly]

Does that include the mercenaries?

DO fuck off, you have your own mega thread for b/s

[sabang]

Are you saying there are no US mercenaries in this war?

[Takeovers]

Are you saying there are no US mercenaries in this war?

Of course not. There are no mercenaries on the side of Ukraine. Only volunteers, willing to fight for the cause of freedom. Besides the regular forces of Ukraine, of course.

[sabang]

Makes you wonder who trains them to use those missile launchers, so generously donated by the western taxpayer. You don't think Putin knows?

[Takeovers]

Makes you wonder who trains them to use those missile launchers, so generously donated by the western taxpayer. You don't think Putin knows?

Those weapons come with training from US and European forces. Obviously, as reported every time. That's why Russia changes their rhetoric to they are losing not to Ukraine, but to NATO. And lose they do.

[sabang]

That's interesting. So you are saying actual official armed forces of western countries are training them to operate the donated weaponry? I think you will find that is an act of war.

[sabang]

Weren't we meant to be fighting a War on Terror?

[Takeovers]

So you are saying actual official armed forces of western countries are training them to operate the donated weaponry?

Do you ever watch real news? Not just Russian propaganda? But even if you only watch Russian propaganda, how do you miss the switch to claims Russia is now fighting NATO?

[panama hat]

Does that include the mercenaries?

They have no control over mercenaries fighting for Russia

[Switch]

Weren't we meant to be fighting a War on Terror?

In your case, where does the term ‘we’ fit in? Or come to think of it, the word ‘fighting’ seems so inappropriate for you?

’Sabang - Armchair hero in his own mind’.

[bsnub]

That's interesting. So you are saying actual official armed forces of western countries are training them to operate the donated weaponry?

You really are exceedingly stupid. The only mercenaries are the Wagner group, fighting for Russia. Those who are fighting for Ukraine are volunteers, as was previously stated, most of whom are former soldiers with combat experience from countries all over the world. There are quite a few from the former soviet diaspora, interestingly enough, as it seems they relish the opportunity to kill their former oppressors.

Your ability to gather credible information on the internet is clearly crippled and limited to only the bogus propaganda outlets you frequent, as it really takes some effort to be so utterly clueless and ill-informed.

[sabang]

You really are exceedingly stupid. The only mercenaries are the Wagner group

Ukraine: Foreign fighters ‘offered £1,500 a day to fight against Russia’

Ukrainain officials have claimed 16,000 foreign soldiers have signed up to fight

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/ukraine-foreign-soldiers-russia-foreign-legion-fight-b986175.html



Russia claims to kill '180 foreign mercenaries' in strike on western Ukraine | The Times of Israel


Good old snubby- give him an inch of rope, and he hangs himself.

[pickel]

Both of those links are from the start of the war. The Ukraine Foreign Legion are required to have combat experience, and are paid the same as members of the Ukraine Army. About 1500$/month. But you keep on falling for that clickbait.

[sabang]

So let's just be clear, shall we? There are indeed foreign mercenaries in Ukraine, fighting for Ukraine. There- that wasn't so hard, was it.

[pickel]

So let's just be clear, shall we? There are indeed foreign mercenaries in Ukraine, fighting for Ukraine. There- that wasn't so hard, was it.

They're part of the Ukrainian Army, so no. Wagner Group, on the other hand?

[bsnub]

you keep on falling for that clickbait.

He always does. After all, according to him, this war was never going to happen.

The most EPIC fail of all time.

[harrybarracuda]

I think you will find that is an act of war.

I think you'll find you're a brown nosing putin fanboi spouting shite.

[Switch]

So let's just be clear, shall we? There are indeed foreign mercenaries in Ukraine, fighting for Ukraine. There- that wasn't so hard, was it.

’We’ again? You really are becoming as delusional as Putin.

As for foreign forces joining in, I have served in the British Army alongside Rhodesians, South Africans, Mauritians, Gurkhas and Fijians. All of whom were volunteers.

You need to move with the times. Do try and keep up gramps.

[sabang]

Good coin anyway, but I sure wouldn't do it for a buck.

[Switch]

Good coin anyway, but I sure wouldn't do it for a buck.

I suspect evidence of some kind of trading and comittment might be required, thereby excluding your good self.

[OhOh]

Some may wish to review THE LORD's address issued Feb 24, 2565 BE.

Address by The President of the Russian Federation.

Video here, Russian with Eng. subs:

Videos ∙ Videos and Photos ∙ President of Russia

Text here:

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

[sabang]

The overwrought fear of China and Russia is sold to a Western public through manipulation of the facts.



JEFFREY D. SACHS
August 23, 2022


The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts. The relentless Western narrative that the West is noble while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous. It is an attempt to manipulate public opinion, not to deal with very real and pressing diplomacy.


The essential narrative of the West is built into US national security strategy. The core US idea is that China and Russia are implacable foes that are "attempting to erode American security and prosperity." These countries are, according to the US, "determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence."

The irony is that since 1980 the US has been in at least 15 overseas wars of choice (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Panama, Serbia, Syria, and Yemen just to name a few), while China has been in none, and Russia only in one (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union. The US has military bases in 85 countries, China in 3, and Russia in 1 (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union.

President Joe Biden has promoted this narrative, declaring that the greatest challenge of our time is the competition with the autocracies, which "seek to advance their own power, export and expand their influence around the world, and justify their repressive policies and practices as a more efficient way to address today's challenges." US security strategy is not the work of any single US president but of the US security establishment, which is largely autonomous, and operates behind a wall of secrecy.
The overwrought fear of China and Russia is sold to a Western public through manipulation of the facts. A generation earlier George W. Bush, Jr. sold the public on the idea that America's greatest threat was Islamic fundamentalism, without mentioning that it was the CIA, with Saudi Arabia and other countries, that had created, funded, and deployed the jihadists in Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere to fight America's wars.

Or consider the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, which was painted in the Western media as an act of unprovoked perfidy. Years later, we learned that the Soviet invasion was actually preceded by a CIA operation designed to provoke the Soviet invasion! The same misinformation occurred vis-à-vis Syria. The Western press is filled with recriminations against Putin's military assistance to Syria's Bashar al-Assad beginning in 2015, without mentioning that the US supported the overthrow of al-Assad beginning in 2011, with the CIA funding a major operation (Timber Sycamore) to overthrow Assad years before Russia arrived.

Or more recently, when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recklessly flew to Taiwan despite China's warnings, no G7 foreign minister criticized Pelosi's provocation, yet the G7 ministers together harshly criticized China's "overreaction" to Pelosi's trip.

The Western narrative about the Ukraine war is that it is an unprovoked attack by Putin in the quest to recreate the Russian empire. Yet the real history starts with the Western promise to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not enlarge to the East, followed by four waves of NATO aggrandizement: in 1999, incorporating three Central European countries; in 2004, incorporating 7 more, including in the Black Sea and Baltic States; in 2008, committing to enlarge to Ukraine and Georgia; and in 2022, inviting four Asia-Pacific leaders to NATO to take aim at China.

Nor do the Western media mention the US role in the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine's pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych; the failure of the Governments of France and Germany, guarantors of the Minsk II agreement, to press Ukraine to carry out its commitments; the vast US armaments sent to Ukraine during the Trump and Biden Administrations in the lead-up to war; nor the refusal of the US to negotiate with Putin over NATO enlargement to Ukraine.

Of course, NATO says that is purely defensive, so that Putin should have nothing to fear. In other words, Putin should take no notice of the CIA operations in Afghanistan and Syria; the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999; the NATO overthrow of Moammar Qaddafi in 2011; the NATO occupation of Afghanistan for 15 years; nor Biden's "gaffe" calling for Putin's ouster (which of course was no gaffe at all); nor US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stating that the US war aim in Ukraine is the weakening of Russia.

At the core of all of this is the US attempt to remain the world's hegemonic power, by augmenting military alliances around the world to contain or defeat China and Russia. It's a dangerous, delusional, and outmoded idea. The US has a mere 4.2% of the world population, and now a mere 16% of world GDP (measured at international prices). In fact, the combined GDP of the G7 is now less than that of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), while the G7 population is just 6 percent of the world compared with 41 percent in the BRICS.

There is only one country whose self-declared fantasy is to be the world's dominant power: the US. It's past time that the US recognized the true sources of security: internal social cohesion and responsible cooperation with the rest of the world, rather than the illusion of hegemony. With such a revised foreign policy, the US and its allies would avoid war with China and Russia, and enable the world to face its myriad environment, energy, food and social crises.

Above all, at this time of extreme danger, European leaders should pursue the true source of European security: not US hegemony, but European security arrangements that respect the legitimate security interests of all European nations, certainly including Ukraine, but also including Russia, which continues to resist NATO enlargements into the Black Sea. Europe should reflect on the fact that the non-enlargement of NATO and the implementation of the Minsk II agreements would have averted this awful war in Ukraine. At this stage, diplomacy, not military escalation, is the true path to European and global security.

---

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

JEFFREY D. SACHS
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sachs is the author, most recently, of "A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism" (2020). Other books include: "Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable" (2017) and “The Age of Sustainable Development," (2015) with Ban Ki-moon.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2...ssia-and-china


Just plain common sense.

[OhOh]

08/24/2022 10:24

Shoigu called the slowdown in the offensive a conscious decision.

Shoigu called the slowdown in the offensive in Ukraine a conscious decision

"TASHKENT, August 24 - RIA Novosti. Slowing down the offensive as part of a special military operation in Ukraine is a conscious decision necessary to minimize civilian casualties, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting of the heads of military departments of the SCO countries.

During the special operation, we strictly observe the norms of humanitarian law. The strikes are carried out with high-precision weapons at the military infrastructure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - command posts, airfields, warehouses, fortified areas, objects of the military-industrial complex. At the same time, everything is done to avoid casualties among civilians. Of course, this slows down the pace of the offensive, but we are doing it consciously."

He stressed that the Russian military in the liberated territories is systematically engaged in establishing a peaceful life - providing humanitarian assistance, restoring infrastructure and life support systems.

At the same time, Ukrainian troops are using "scorched earth tactics" and grossly violating international norms by acting like terrorists, the minister continued. Thus, the Armed Forces of Ukraine place firing positions in residential areas, hospitals, schools and kindergartens.

Shoigu stressed that the supply Ukraine from Western countries multiplies the number of victims and prolongs the conflict.
"Today, a tough sanctions and information war is unleashed against Russia. And the conflict in Ukraine has become just another pretext for this. The stated goal of the United States and its accomplices is the strategic exhaustion of Russia in order to eliminate competition and warn other states pursuing an independent foreign policy."

He recalled that Moscow made great efforts to "form the legal foundations of stability in Europe in the new conditions," but the West refused to take into account its concerns about guarantees of mutual security.

"Ukraine was chosen as an instrument of a hybrid war against Russia ," Shoigu stated.

Since February 24, Russia has been conducting a special military operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. Vladimir Putin called its task "the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." According to the president, the ultimate goal is the liberation of Donbass and the creation of conditions that guarantee the security of Russia itself.

As the Ministry of Defense reported in a daily report the day before, in total, since the beginning of the special operation, the Russian military has destroyed 268 aircraft, 148 helicopters, 1,796 drones, 369 anti-aircraft missile systems, 4,377 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 818 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems, 3,335 field guns in Ukraine. artillery and mortars, as well as 5024 special vehicles."

https://ria.ru/20220824/nastuplenie-1811751902.html

[NamPikToot]

FSB ...