Quote from: Hydra009 on April 07, 2022, 10:31:32 AMRussia threatens Finland, says they would destroy their country if it joins NATO

Russia threatens Japan, says it has the right to annex Hokkaido

They're getting desperate, huh? Bet Japan is shaking and crying from halfway across the world. Shaking and crying of laughter.

Quote from: Blackleaf on April 07, 2022, 11:32:45 AMThey're getting desperate, huh? Bet Japan is shaking and crying from halfway across the world. Shaking and crying of laughter.

Japan has been unusually belligerent towards Russia lately.  Not just the normal righteous indignation and anger that all free nations feel about Ukraine, but something more personal.  These repeated provocations at the Northern Territories (Kurile Islands) truly angered Japanese leadership, which it now calls an illegal occupation.

Russia's perceived attempts at damaging Japan's territorial integrity may be taken as very similar to its attempts to bully and steal land from its ex-soviet neighbors, which is highly insulting to Japan's status as a great power.

Suffice it to say that Japan has both a history of being on the receiving end of imperialism in general and a history with Russian imperialism in particular and will act accordingly if threatened.

Quote from: Hydra009 on April 07, 2022, 12:26:01 PMSuffice it to say that Japan has both a history of being on the receiving end of imperialism in general and a history with Russian imperialism in particular and will act accordingly if threatened.

Japan has a history on both sides of the imperialism scales.

Since 1905 Russia and Japan have not been the best of buds.  Russia really underestimated Japan then, much like Putin has misjudged the Ukraine. 

Fun fact; this is the modern "Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces" that the head of the "Russian" - moved there from Kyiv after the Russian Empire annexed Ukraine a few centuries ago - Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, preached from to military commanders that they were holding back "the armies of satan" and saving the "Holy Russians" (Ukrainians) by... killing them?




It's symbolism is steeped in WW2 iconography, with Soviet medals making up the mosaics and the floor being made of melted down war-trophies and tanks from Nazi Germany - all opened just a year or two ago to celebrate the 75th anniversary.

We really still pretending that the Soviets aren't still in charge over there? That people can look at this picture and tell me that "the Soviets don't exist anymore."?

Quote"Only a nation that loves God could build such a grand cathedral," said Bishop Stefan of Klin, who heads the Russian Orthodox church's department for cooperation with the army and regularly holds services at the cathedral, where he is the patriarch's designated representative.

The 59-year-old bishop, who was an officer in the Soviet and Russian missile defence forces before becoming a priest, defended the use of Soviet symbols, saying the cathedral depicted "all the epochs of our state, Holy Rus" and it would be wrong to leave out the second world war, given how many Soviet soldiers were religious.

But the imagery has proved controversial. "For many priests, who were young in the 1970s and 1980s and personally came up against the repressive Soviet machine, which targeted the church, they are in shock and they can't get over it," said Sergei Chapnin, a religious scholar in Moscow. "This is not really an Orthodox cathedral, it's a cathedral of our new post-Soviet civil religion," he added.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/20/orthodox-cathedral-of-the-armed-force-russian-national-identity-military-disneyland

Just remember to duck and cover. It is 100 seconds to midnite. Better off being vaporized.
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/timeline/

Quote from: Cassia on April 08, 2022, 01:18:32 AMJust remember to duck and cover. It is 100 seconds to midnite. Better off being vaporized.
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/timeline/

I remember this well.  I was in third or fourth grade.  And it was great fun practicing for the real thing.  We would turn our desks on their sides so the top faced the windows, and hide behind them, while doing the same thing at any other time was a sure trip to the principal's office.  Also, Tuesday morning at 10:30, Chicago and Suburbs sounded air raid sirens, I guess this was both a test and to remind us to think about where we would go when the bombers came.

Even at the young age, I knew what a nuclear bomb was, and I used to wonder when we practiced Duck and Cover how much good it would actually do.  Then one day, the really smart people on the TV said, it probably wouldn't help much, and I said, "I already wondered the same thing!"

Ukraine uses "terminator" drones to terrorize Russian invaders

Quote"This clever, creative solution that our soldiers have found not to waste ammunition, not to waste artillery shells [is] ... take a commercial drone, with a camera, and camouflage it to look like something out of the worst Terminator movie," Novikov said. "So, it looks incredibly scary. Then they fly that drone around the place where the Russian soldiers are."

I saw footage from one of them.  The russian invader panicked and ran as fast as he could to his 'base", which looked like a low-end homeless encampment.  We're talking filthy mattresses and makeshift tents on the side of a road.  His buddies start shooting at the drone and man, they are awful shots.  Eventually, they hit it and the feed cuts out.  Presumably, they were later paid a visit by Ukrainian forces or artillery.

Russian influencers (affluencers) destroy their own luxury handbags that they can no longer buy

Sanctions can only halt western goods from flowing into Russia, they can't remove goods that are already there.  So thanks for helping the sanctions have more of an effect. 👍

Estonia bans all Russian gas

Ukrainian forces wipe out elite Russian armored brigade

QuoteSOFREP reported the entire Russian unit never made it to Belgorod and the Ukrainian military's description of the unit as "scrap metal" could suggest the unit's near-total destruction.

Sounds like Ukrainian forces found them while they were trying to retreat/regroup and wiped them out.  What I wouldn't give for the footage!

Slovakia sends S-300 air defense system to Ukraine

yeah...heads in the sand

I can't wait for the day till they have to watch those videos like the Germans did.