Russia - threadbanned users in OP

The article doesn't say three pink lions entered the bar shortly afterwards and took photographs, so by your weird logic it should be considered entirely possible they did.

When reading accounts like this written by journalists, the logical assumption would be that events happened as reported and that the most important and relevant were included.

Since the article didn't state that the police were called, which would be highly relevant to an incident of this nature, i'ts logical to assume they weren't.

strategic bombers starting runs the last 2 days, sign they are going to carpet bomb the place like they did in Syria...

Be interesting if Ukraine and get anti assets close, although I think that would just be an excuse for Putin to hit the nuke button.

The fact that protesting could lead to you doing 15 years in prison has a large part to do with that.

If not for the police clampdown on protesters I wouldn't be surprised if it had reached massive numbers. But right from the early days of protest, a very high percentage were getting arrested, and inevitably that was massive factor putting others off of joining in.

It's not the same as someone protesting in Dublin, it comes with very serious consequences for yourself to do so.

I wouldn't call it a"bluff". More to have as an excuse or justification for the aftermath - "Well we gave them the chance to surrender and they wouldn't that is why we ended up having to kill them all in fighting" .... like the lads on the bikes or the people in civilian clothes shot in the back of the head with their hands tied behind their backs.

I think that the effectiveness of social media protests was greatly diminished when youtube removed the "thumbs down" count. If that hadn't been done, Putin would have left ages ago.

Somethings going down in the neighborhood.

I believe the DNR 'seperatist' leader was arrested yesterday by the fsb. Might be related or simply conscripts trying to fight back.

No its not a cop-out. From birth, they are indoctrinated into the system, step out of line, and you will pay the price. Any , ( even perceived ) deviation, never mind full blown protests, are met head on with brute force. You will have seen it before, when there were protests about Putin rigging elections etc. What else do you expect when the country is ruled by thug? Maybe at some point it will reach critical mass ( especially if the military mutiny ) but we are not there yet. Would not surprise me if Putin sent his police / military to shoot his own people if the protests threatened him.

"There is new evidence of the atrocities of the occupiers against the civilian population, the Rashists admit that they are shooting Ukrainian women closely. They do this with special cynicism, releasing several bullets even in the breathless body of their victims.

The SBU intercepts such conversations of the invaders and documents their crimes – so that in the future no one guilty will go unpunished.

This "hero", who was mobilized by the Russians in the so-called "LNR", tells his friend about the brutal murder of a Ukrainian woman by his colleagues: "...there is some woman lying there, ...her head shot out, lying there, twitching. There was a hole in her head... They called for more, he shot her again, she was still twitching, he shot her again... That's it, I said, she was fucked".

As it turned out, the wife's only fault was that "...she had, like, a brother in Azov, and she started talking some bullsh*t.

The soldier allegedly resents the behavior of his fellow soldiers, but in no way prevented this war crime. Only advised at least to bury the murdered.

This is what Russian "mastery" really looks like!"

Due to sovereignty issues, it's seems clear that all these war crimes will go unpunished, despite all the toothless blather about being held to account, brought to justice and trials. I'ts all a load of impotent nonsense as Russia will never hand anyone over.

It was suggested a countries funds, if frozen, are legally immune from later seizure. Whatever international law that enables that immunity needs to be changed so that all Russia's foreign assets are fair game for reparations and to be held hostage to be used as incentive for the handover of individuals wanted for war crimes prossecution. Something like a €100m fine from frozen funds for each person not extradited when asked for.

No

Ukrainians have been reporting that in those areas, the Russians have been forcibly conscripting all males they can find, including children, the over 65, invalids and handicapped, and sticking AK-47s in their hands, and one presumes, another in their backs.

I have been rather wondering why some of these don't frag their Russian overlords. Perhaps this might be related to unhappy conscripts.

Have you known any Russians or Soviet bloc citizens who grew up in the 60's and 70's? I think they'd have issue with your 'reliable and a lot cheaper.' Ladas were junk as were Pobodas. My old friends are always amused to see photos of them in use in places like Cuba (old ones), held together with spit and bailing wire, like in Russia. Also, there were bread lines and extreme privation by western standards (e.g., 1 toilet base in an apartment building with everyone having their own family seats that they brought with them.)

And, you do have to ask exactly how the laborers on the Soviet-era public projects were compensated and how many were compelled to labor.

A good friend who was from Moldova told me the first time they got to leave and go to the Czech republic, they were stunned by the availability of food, clothing, basic staples like toilet paper. They really did use copies of Pravda in the loo. To this day, he can't stand the smell of coconut because of cheap Cuban laundry soap scented with coconuts that was all that was available growing up. It's also obvious he was malnourished as a kid, too.

Out of choice, the Soviet union compelled this onto their population. They were isolated because their leadership was happy with it. Their people suffered by design, just like under the Tsars. "Animal Farm" is a pretty accurate allegory.

I regularly see black Hawks fly into the Ukraine.

They never show up on flight radar.