Will Putin Invade Ukraine?

[Hydra009]

Leaders of France, Germany, UK, and Poland offers Putin a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.  Failure to comply results in additional sanctions.

Putin talks about peace a lot - while invading Ukraine and bombing Ukrainian civilians.  This forces him to actually walk the walk OR ELSE.  It's also an additional embarrassment for Putin since this is the West calling the shots, not him.

I predict - surprise surprise - that he won't agree but will say some stuff about considering it and wanting peace but once again pressing demand after demand for Ukrainian land and resources and control over Ukraine's government and military and potential alliances and whatever else he thinks he can get away with.  Blah blah blah.

Personally, I'd give Ukraine a billion dollars of frozen Russian funds every time he pipes up about that BS.  No demands from invaders.  Get out now and save your own power and country.  That's the best deal you're going to get.

[Hydra009]

🇷🇺 Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia's Security Council and known for his frequent unhinged, seemingly drunk rants, lashed out at Western leaders visiting Kyiv:

"Either a truce for the respite of Banderite hordes or new sanctions. You think that's smart, eh? Shove these peace plans up your pangender arses!"

🍺 🍻 💊

Medvedev often serves as a Putin surrogate online, expressing more or less what Putin thinks, albeit through a vodka glass darkly.

Putin is not happy about this development, to put it mildly.  He somewhat hedged against expanded sanctions by deepening ties with China and North Korea, but even that won't completely help.  European leaders should factor this in and use even tougher sanctions in response.

Also, note that Putin views Ukraine as a fictional entity, a bandit kingdom unfairly sundered from Russia.  And he views the West with utmost contempt, especially irritated by western tolerance of LGBT, who he views as subhuman.  He very much has a nazi-like hierarchy of ethnicity and sexual orientation, with ethnic Russians at the top and gay people towards the bottom.  So if you ever wonder why his mouthpieces bring up gay/transgender issues seemingly randomly and unrelated to the topic at hand, that's why. 

[Unbeliever]

Well, at least with "pangender" I learned a new word today.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What a brave new word we live in.

[Hydra009]

Surprise surprise: Russia rejects ceasefire proposal, attacks Ukraine with Shaheds

[Gawdzilla Sama]

ShitHeads?

[Hydra009]

EU unveils 17th sanctions package against Russia

The 17th package sees some 200 'shadow fleet' tankers sanctioned.

In addition to the ships, the package adds new restrictions on 30 companies involved in the trade of dual-use goods while 75 individuals and entities will be listed for their links to Russia's military industrial complex.
The countries have also agreed to expand the legal base for their sanctions framework on Russian hybrid threats. One of the new measures will allow the EU to sanction fleets that destroy subsea cables and other physical assets. A further 20 entities and individuals were added to this list.

Punishments for destroying undersea cables and other infrastructure should've happened a long time ago, but it's good that they're finally doing it.

Speaking of hybrid attacks, back in May, a shopping center in Poland experienced an arson attack.  Russia was of course a prime suspect, but it was purely speculative at the time.  Well, now we know for sure that Russia was behind it.

"We have evidence that they commissioned people living in Poland, they commissioned them on Telegram and paid them to set fire to this huge shopping mall," Sikorski said on Monday.

"It was by miracle that nobody was hurt, but this is completely unacceptable."

The foreign minister told the BBC he had decided Russia's presence in Poland must be "further curtailed" and that Russia's consulate in Krakow had now been closed in order to try and make it harder for Moscow to "spy" on Poland.

"We will take further decisions if they continue these hybrid attacks," Sikorski said.

[Hydra009]

Pressure on Putin:  Zelenskyy will reportedly be waiting for Putin in Turkey tomorrow for peace talks

This is part of an ongoing effort by Zelenskyy and allied European leaders to definitively reveal that Putin has no real interest in peace and influence Trump by showing that Putin is the one consistently rejecting his peace efforts despite talking about peace a lot.

Putin refuses to go to Turkey despite suggesting it and he won't even send Mouth of Putin Lavrov.  Instead, it's just low-level flunkies.  To me this does not indicate a sincere effort to engage in peace talks.  If Trump also has this reaction, Putin might regret his decision to not go.  We'll see.  At the least, it blows a hole in Putin's frequent talking point that Russia is open to peace and that Ukraine is the one to blame for continuing the war.  Clearly, that's a lie.  And being revealed as a lie to the world more and more, thanks to EU/Zelenskyy's efforts.  This diplomatic maneuvering might ultimately help Ukraine and hurt Russia by showing that Russia is the main party to blame, not Ukraine.

[Hydra009]

In the meantime, Putin's war rages on:

The Ukrainian side has successfully used a drone equipped with a grenade launcher on Russian soldiers.  Brutal, but not half as bad as what Russian troops do to each other.

There's video of two Russian infantry trapped inside a deep pit and made to fight each other - pitted against each other so to speak - for a chance at freedom.  Their crime?  Allegedly, refusal to go on assault - an assault that would probably get them killed.  There are similar videos/reports from other units - one soldier was buried up to his neck for refusal to go on suicide mission.  Another was placed in a cage.  Another was dragged across the ground and had clearly been abused prior to that.

On the Ukrainian side, they treat each other a bit different.  Ukrainian drone operators successfully rescued three captured Ukrainian soldiers exclusively with drones.  First, they struck near the Russians - but not too close to avoid harming the captured Ukrainians.  With the Russians scared off and ultimately killed, the drone operates led the Ukrainians back to a Ukrainian position with their drones.  The reason those Ukrainian soldiers were almost captured in the first place is because the Russians used chemical warfare to incapacitate the Ukrainians - a tactic Russian officials deny yet it is frequent and often documented.

"There was so much hell burning in my chest from the gas they poisoned us with. When our FPVs flew in - it was an incredible feeling. I'm so grateful to my brothers for not leaving us to our fate," HUR reported Ketz as saying.

Harmacist: Ukrainian combat medic saves unit from enemy encirclement by using grenade launcher

She reportedly struck a Russian infiltration unit that had taken cover in a house behind the Ukrainian unit.  Her shot wiped out that unit, allowing the Ukrainians to maintain their positions and eventually retreat.

There's also footage of the exact opposite situation - a Russian infiltration unit was discovered and flanked by two Ukrainian units.  The Ukrainian units held the Russian unit at bay for a tense minute for a nearby FPV drone to arrive (I forget just how long a minute truly is until seeing intense combat and a countdown clock).  The FPV drone arrives and I gotta say, the Ukrainians are shockingly accurate with those things now.  Comprehensive Ukrainian victory.  I wish they could all go like that.

[Hydra009]

[Hydra009]

What a dum-dum.  Either Russia's most nearsighted mobnik or physics-impaired.  He really thought he could jump over the anti-tank ditch - the thing purposefully designed to act as a barrier for tanks and other vehicles.  Astonishing lack of foresight or even basic training/awareness.  Definitely symbolic of Russia's latest efforts.

[Unbeliever]

He thought he was Evel Knutnik! 🏍
🤣

[Gawdzilla Sama]

He thought he was Evel Knutnik! 🏍
🤣

"The power of the proletariat will overcome this mythical bourgeois* 'gravity'!"


*I spelled that right on the first try. Been fifty years or more. 

[ferdmonger]

At the risk of being repetitious, Putin does not want peace - he wants Ukraine. He simply can't allow the Russian rurals to expect a western nation with indoor plumbing right next door. Anyone remember the reports of the early invading soldiers stating 'These people waste money on indoor showers and toilets.'  The fucking horror! 

[Hydra009]

As expected, the Russian delegation sent to Turkey had no real intentions towards peace.

Putin is the one calling the shots in Russia so without Putin, they can't negotiate much.  That didn't stop them from making unreasonable demands, like asking for the entirety of 4 Ukrainian regions - Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, and Donetsk.  Russia famously was forced to flee Kherson city and now it wants it back at the bargaining table.  In exchange, Ukraine gets a 30-day ceasefire.  What a strange emeralds-for-peanuts lopsided deal!  Intentionally made to be rejected.  Ukraine of course rejected this demand.  The Russian delegation then added Sumy to the list of regions it wants and also threatened more death of Ukrainians.  And people wonder why peace is so difficult.

I keep telling you guys, these people are not moral or reasonable people.  These are the people who cultivate and control the looters and murderers and rapists that Ukraine fights off daily.  They are not better than them - they are worse than them, because they don't just do evil, they cultivate the conditions for evil to flourish.  The only way Ukraine will get favorable terms is if these sorts of people have been thoroughly beaten and no longer see a real chance at victory and the only way that'll happen is through significant military aid to Ukraine.

Unfortunately, Trump - unlike the vast majority of his european counterparts - is not getting the message that Putin is deadset on war and publically at least presents Putin as a person open to peace, despite the evidence to the contrary.  The whole point of this trip was to show this to Trump very clearly and he doesn't seem to get it.  Shameful.

Still, some good things that came out of this - Ukraine is getting back 1000 POWs in an even swap, the Russian narrative that Russia is willing to negotiate but Ukraine isn't has been conclusively shown to be false, and Zelenskyy is having lots of talks with Turkish officials as well as other european leaders.  European countries are looking to more closely coordinate their responses to ongoing Russian foot-dragging at the negotiating table and renewed aggression on the field instead of serious peace talks.