beautifulthailand99

He's about as legitimate as the Thai PM which isn't much and he neuters any possible contenders as soon as he can and has the state media punting him. That said he probably would get 50% approval and probably a lot more on a fair plebiscite if such a thing could be done. He's no Saddam. We can't know the current popularity of Zelenskyi as we still have martial law - but general opinion suggests that Zalunhyi his sacked head of the armed forces would probaly win a presidential election if it was a 2 horse race. https://kyivindependent.com/poll-ukrainians-trust-in-zelensky-declines-trust-in-zaluzhnyi-is-high/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Vladimir_Putin

If you are already doing this then please ignore. But if you're not and you are blowharding for more war then could I suggest putting your money where your mouths and keyboards are. https://www.usubc.org/site/recent-news/war-bonds--invest-to-support-ukraine

The algos are pretty smart now they even pick up a fragment of music in say a 20 minute walking talking head which means the uploader has to edit and reupload. All You Tube is bothered about is advertsing and reputation. They are looking for original content thats passes their tests with a human lookover before they approve. Old copyright music would simply not pass that test.

You need more than 1000 subs and 4000 watch hours in a year. Then you can apply for monetization which is manually assesed. The copyright material means it falls at the first hurdle.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ballistic-missile-ukraine-iran-us-intelligence-3601a979e91d19c94e7d0fe27a398669

Why would it do that though it's isn't out of other missiles Examination of debris shows plenty of new kit used so they still have ramped up industrial capacity. It would be the equivalent of using a sledgehammer to put up a shelf.That and NK has stepped up to the plate with exports of tech,shells and misisles. The lesson of Huawei is sanction a company or country to death in a country that posseses the manpower, industrial capacity and know how just makes the sanctioned entity stronger in the longer term. https://archive.ph/r1IEg

The reverse has happened on the Ukrainian front where Himars and Patriots were easily spotted by the endless drones and taken out so remaining ones were moved way back behind the lines making the front vulnerable to the relentless onlslaught of FAB bombs launched 10s of kms from behind the Russian lines. Same for the increasingly vulnerable power grid - Ukraine is pretty much out of AD. Zelenskiy is asking for stuff that doesn't exist or if it does the owner doesn't want to give it up. Who can forget after October 7th leader after leader went to visit Netanhayu bearing gifts and sympathy but Zeleskiy was given an abrupt no. They are fishing in the same pool and Israel has first dibs. Besisdes which if Russia is such an existential threat to the rest of Europe then why would anyone give up valuable AD ? The paradox of of Schrodinger's Russia:Russia is both "upper Volta with missiles" with a smaller economy than Italy and a weak nation that Obama called a "regional power" - but is also an existential threat to US democracy and powerful enough to influence the outcome of US elections and take over the whole of Europe just like Hitler. https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-ukraine-has-25-of-needed-air-defenses/ https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/10/16/7424350/

Both sides are heavily compromised intelligence wise and some will leak information for money or the age old age old honeytraps. The grenade that killed a close friend of Zalunhyi and the poisoning of Budanov's wife were inside jobs. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67342367

I would say the comma is uneccesary and capitalisation of Reds and your assumption of my gender but apart from that perfect. Never had a pet troll before I am quite amused.

Nothing as you don't own the copyright the money from adsense will go to them.

Interesting take from Kasparov who almost accuses Biden of betrayal.

A united briefing front from the US which is not so subtly pushing a line. Armistice and DMZ - sorry Fellas. The counter argument is always that UA couldn’t trust Russia to invade again. But there’s also the debilitating effect this conflict has had on Ukraine by continuing; millions lost to migration and hundreds of thousands lost, with no guarantee of a better deal down the line. Instead, the more likely end to the fighting could be an uneasy truce. Marc Weller, a Cambridge international law professor who specializes in peace negotiations, said he expected leading Western countries to focus on defending Ukraine’s future battle line with Russia “rather than seek accommodation across it.” “The Iron Curtain will now fall on the line of occupation administered by the Russians across Ukraine,” Mr. Weller said https://archive.ph/uzDI3

Interesting article in the WSJ suggesting that the direction of travel is towards a possible second summit where it is hoped that Ukraine and Russia can begin negotataions. The upticks of positive UKR messaging and throwing everything they have at Russia reminds me of the same mood before the much vaunted Shh Spring Offensive. The US desperately wants their own out so that they can pivot resources and attention to Asia-Pacific and the spectre of Trump hangs over everything like a cloud and it's not a peace summit if you don't invite your enemy. Zelesnkiy is going to be persuaded to downgrade his maximalist position or possibly be removed to make way for someone who can. Keeping up appearances and presenting a united front is obviously important but Meloni gave the game away over a year ago when she was pranked by Russians. The situation is unarguably far worse now. European leaders are “tired” of the war in Ukraine, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told two Russian pranksters in a call — thinking she was speaking with officials with the African Union. Meloni informed the pair that “fatigue” with the war was coming to a head.“I see that there is a lot of fatigue, I have to say the truth, from all the sides,” she said. “We [are] near the moment in which everybody understands that we need a way out.” https://www.politico.eu/article/giorgia-meloni-ukraine-fatigue-prank-call-russia-war/ Zelensky has said that he is open to a follow-up summit later this year that Russia might attend. But some Western diplomats said they doubt that—even if Moscow becomes more willing to embrace peace negotiations—the kind of multilateral, public setting for this weekend’s summit would be the right formula. That diplomatic push, rather than patching up cracks in global sympathy for Ukraine, has exposed them. At a Group of Seven summit in Italy this week, leaders of large advanced democracies offered money and rhetoric for Ukraine but only a weak facsimile of the security guarantees that Zelensky sought. The Ukrainian president, who invited Chinese leader Xi Jinping to attend the Swiss conference, has since publicly feuded with China, which he says has discouraged other nations from attending. https://archive.ph/z9gWH

Don't tell @transam but that's when the commies took over.

Fair point but then neither will the Russians. A chap was on LBC Radio talking to Matt Frei this morning who reckoned the frozen war Korean armistice was the most likely outcome. A war which is no longer hot but never resolved. I agree. If Trump wins then he will acclerate that process to that point and claim it as his victory but it was probably going to happen anyway and if it is going to happen anyway then the sooner the war stops the sooner folks stop dying.

I'm no data wonk so I'll defer to your more eagle eye. The substantive point which I think you were making is that the Russian economy will fail and along with it's war economy and its ability to continue to wage this war. So along with your moral objection to Russian expansionism and abhorent behaviours, which I share, you believe that Ukraine will triumph on both the battlefield and Russia will lose firstly in its ability to wage war and then the war itself. I've posted numerous authoritative articles on this thread that the collapse of the Russian economy is just wishful thinking and other factors have come into play that have taken up the slack. I get the existential argument from the west that they can't afford to lose this war reputationally but then neither can Russia. It's a stalemate in which only further destruction can happen for probably the same end result in the end. Russia “winning". Knowing what I know now if I was a Ukrainian aged 18-60 living in Ukraine I would be looking for a way to get out of the country as have many hundreds of thousands already and why enforced conscription is proving so problematic. Sending fresh meat to the front lines with barely any training and weapons is criminal in itself and why I don't cheer for something I wouldn't do myself.

The problem is "and they all lived happily ever after" doesn't work with Russia - they never smile for a reason. Philip Larkin in another context summed it up well. They feck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fecked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.

And here's the UK profile for the same period. Pretty much identical in trend.

The point is in an attritional war where the Russsian state and economy do not collapse they "win" - and that's discounting the Trump / Europe populism element and assuming China backfills tech shortages.His plan is go full wartime ecomomy and he has appointed his best bean counter in charge of the armed forces and taxing his oligargchs and businesses in a shakedown to pay for the war. Putin has never been more powerful in his own country - just ask Prizoghin. The ruling elite the silovoki are all in this together - even if Putin fell for some reason his successor couldn't allow this project to fail. Winning now is keeping what he has got and he's done.

"'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' reported by Peter Arnett from a US major about the destruction of Ben Tre. Now revised "to the last Ukrainian".

Oops Germany still wants cheap Russian gas - gas before guns as Goebbels might have said. European Union countries failed to approve a new sanctions package targeting the Russian gas industry after German authorities intervened to block the deal at the last minute. The measures would have banned EU member states from re-exporting Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) from EU ports and financing planned Arctic and Baltic LNG terminals. German officials reportedly expressed concern about an expanded measure that would force EU companies to guarantee their customers cannot go on to sell sanctioned goods to Russia. https://kyivindependent.com/germany-blocks-sanctions-on-russian-gas/

US runs a one in one out policy - these guys will be in clover if Russia attacks Norway. There are bad Nazis and our Nazis - just ask concentration camp slave master Werner von Braun - after he died NASA re-nazified him again. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/14/us-nmr-terrorist-neo-nazi-group https://www.nasa.gov/people/wernher-von-braun/

I read this report in full and wished I hadn't it's badly written and even plagiarises stuff without attribution. TLDR ; it says the US needs to move onto to the Chinese threat and Europe needs to step up to the plate to come to the defence of Ukraine. It also says that western arnanment production in all areas needs to ramp up and that will act as a detertent but also a good source of arms should conflicts occur. So for decades the US leads in encouraging Ukraine to further breakaway , aids the resultant war and at the zenith says guys we have other priorities - "Stronger American focus on the Indo-Pacific, which is where the main challenge to global security lies". Oh no, so many countries were already left in ruin by Chinese aggression - NOT ! Reminds me of talk from Noam Chomsky. An area that agrees with US policy is "stable" while an area that disagrees is "unstable". So when the US says a region is "destabilized" it means the current government disagrees with the US. The US will then destabilize the country in order to "stabilize" the region. We are long through the looking glass now but there was a time when our media told the truth. John Pilger RIP. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukraine-us-war-russia-john-pilger

Which is ?