VolSquatch

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Ukraine wasn't interested in NATO until 2022.

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That isn't accurate.

They tried in '08 and NATO itself actually said they would become members but did not grant them MAP.

Under Yanukovych they stopped pursuing, but after Crimea it's been a foreign policy goal of theirs ever since.

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This has always been my philosophy. I look at the people of a country to take responsibility for their leaders.

People say the Germans were good people. It was the Nazis who were evil.
I don’t buy that. German citizens did little to stamp out the Nazis.

I believe the Russian people haven’t done enough to make their government better. Now it’s not easy, but doing nothing to bring democracy to Russia facilitates dictators like Putin.

I may be too simplistic, but that’s the way I feel.

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No you're actually being fairly nuanced imo.

I think it's absolutely true that certain groups of people are more likely to end up having bad/corrupt governments. Russians historically have shown to be that. I don't think it's necessarily because they are inherently "bad" or something, there are a lot of elements that go into it. Culture, resources, history, how the rest of the world treats them, geography. That goes for anywhere.

Rhodesia for all of its obvious flaws was a fairly modernized place and now look at Zimbabwe. "In Rhodesia you drove on the left side of the road. In Zimbabwe you drive on what's left of the road".

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Casualties at 8:1- no way to confirm
Military retirees- no one knows if service terms are expiring or how many are expiring

All these numbers are highly speculative.

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The outright BS is usually easy to spot but we just won't know the numbers until after it's over because no one has any incentive to provide legitimate information.

Even high quality media is incentivized to report numbers they don't even believe because they don't want to lose access to other information. And it's a win for them anyway because they can generate their clicks and also won't be held to account when the numbers turn out to be bunk because they are getting them from "legitimate" sources.

I hold to the standard that Russia is losing more men than Ukraine as the aggressor. Trends seem to show both sides are having manpower concerns to at least some extent. Anything more specific than that, I will be skeptical of.

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Now you've made a response that indicates Ukrainians (and Belarussians) are distinctly not Russian (perhaps you mean they are both).

So, what's you overall take on Ukraine as a nation?

Are they a legitimate nation in your estimation?

Are they a separate, distinct population?

Do they or should they belong to (or be part) of the Russian Federation?

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I don't really see a good argument that Ukranians aren't a distinct ethnic group with a rich history at bare minimum unless you started reading history only going back as far as the start of the USSR.

Ukraine as a nation state is somewhat more contentious in a historical sense but even so they've been a nation in their current form as long as the current Russian Federation has. Some argument that they are equivalent to like a US state in reference to Russia is not accurate either, and either way that hasn't been the case in closing on 4 decades so clearly they have the right and expectation to not be invaded by bloodthirsty tyrants.

I was commenting on Nate saying something positive about Ukriane and Cope still being a bitch about it :lol:

He called it the most significant Ukranian tactical win and you're still crying about it :lol:

It has to include a written contract for Patriots or a check to make Cope happy

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Do you know the impacts of a strong El Niño on US farmers? Is it a positive or negative?

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I think for the US it's more about preparing for expected shifts in usual temps and conditions. You can't use the same playbook in an El Nino year. The US is so big that in some areas yields will actually go up and in some go down.

The diesel supply is a big one to watch too because it's trying to the point where countries are going to be in competition for diesel. Doesn't matter how much you can grow if you also can't harvest it, so that would hit farmers on multiple sides potentially

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Does anyone else find this weird as shite?

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Very much so.

Probably the worst side effect of these stupid Russian troll accounts that pop up every now and then is that they make Leopold post more.

He doesn't know enough to say anything substantive about the war (or much of anything else), so he takes the opportunity to go back and forth in this cringey, performative dance with a troll until it's banned.

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It's one thing for a drone to fly off course, that's going to happen to both sides.

It is an entirely different thing for a drone to fly off course and hit a facility being used to support Ukraine. One is plausible, one isn't

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I don't believe I implied anything to the contrary.

The White Knight arrives!

Do you want to make up something I didn't imply to complain about, or do you want to provide some sort of counter to the obvious truth that in modern warfare things that aren't intentional targets sometimes get hit?