"The 1980's are calling to ask for their foreign policy back."

That’s been discussed here. It’s from 2019.

Fuck's sake, that'll teach me not to check anything posted on TBBS by CrazyEwok. He's the Brit version of FF, but he does usually seem more on point when it comes to Ukraine...

Your regular reminder that Russia is mobilizing its entire society and using up decades of stored-up Soviet weapons in an all-out attempt to conquer a country with 25% of its population and 11% of its GDP, and has so far managed to conquer only around 10% of that country.

If you think a failure on that scale is equivalent to America's failure to turn an already-occupied Afghanistan into a liberal democracy with an occupying force of 9000 troops, you're just not very bright at all.

https://twitter.com/noahpinion/status/1619047681061720065

I think we need to have a serious discussion about DoD budget priorities.

Sounds like a pro Russian journalist paid far right folk to burn a Quran near the Turkish embassy in order to jeopardize Sweden’s NATO membership

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/inte...d-journalist-paid-for-quran-burning-in-sweden

Worth a watch:

Today's last look: how the world economy has managed to cope surprisingly well with massive disruptions brought by Russia's war on Ukraine

https://twitter.com/fareedzakaria/status/1619776642565423116

Yeah, the West in general has handled this well so far. Let's hope that Ukraine kicks them out in the Spring offensive then. Because the longer this goes on, the more chances there will be greater disruption. The Russian/Ukraine areas are critical exporters of wheat, oil, natural gas, fertilizer, potash, finished iron, coal, aluminum, titanium, steel, neon, platinum, copper... And several of these things require a considerable investment and time to get up and operating somewhere else.

Trouble on the home front for Russia:



As I understand it, the Kadyrov mentioned refers to a Russian general and his nephew (the rapist) is a leader of a Chechen paramilitary unit that has been supporting Russia. Russia has been overlooking the unsavory activities of his men as long as they were committed against the Ukrainians, but this probably won't be tolerated.

Kadyrovites is short hand for ‘loyal’ to Russia Chechens.

The current president of the Chechen Republic is Ramsam Kadyrov. His father Akhmad Kadyrov led the First War of Chechen independence and was Independent Chechnya’s first (and only so far) Grand Mufti.

During Putin’s Second Chechen War following Putin’s leveling of Grozny and other war crimes he switched sides. Putin granted him complete control over Chechnya as long as acknowledged Moscow suzerainty and provided troops.

An Islamist mad at the sellout suicided himself and killed Ahkmad Kadyrov. There were a couple years of instability but eventually Putin put Ramzam in charge and here he is.

Go look up his Instagram. He’s a social media savvy Kim Jong-un.

Like the VDV the Kadyrovites (Chechen soldiers) have a reputation for being hard core/fanatical/super soldiers/etc.

In reality they are better at Tic-Toc than actual soldiery.

Now. The fun part comes in that about five years ago IIRC a handful of FSB agents were killed in Chechnya. Killed in a way that clearly pointed to Kadyrov and equally clearly didn’t hide the fact.

Kadyrov and Prigozhin (owner of Wagner Group) are the two greatest internal threats to Putin. Shoigu (Defense Minister) is Tuvan (Turkic Steppe people - Mongolian) so could never rally the upper brass (almost all Moscovite) against Putin. But these two independent groups… Groups that have well developed propaganda arms and appear to be winning while the regular Russian military falters…

It occurs to me; if MAGA trash raped a female Fox reporter, you know damned good and well Tucker Carlson would be on the very next day going "y'know....is rape really as bad as it's made out to be? ".

Boris Johnson discovers Tucker Carlson.

https://twitter.com/jrcookson/status/1620861501111414784

Interesting thread/conjecture on the intel situation.

https://twitter.com/zachsdorfman/status/1621241026303393792