If Prig got dusted, better hope there aren’t to many of his comrades in arms who don’t hold a grudge. Because Russia has been dredging the prisons and slums to give uniforms to. And Wagner’s crew are to say the least a bit more motivated (ie fucken bloodthirsty)
Wait, am I reading this right that the plane was shot down by russian air defence? If this is backed up at all by anything like a russian source, then this will just further enforce option that russia can not be trusted to do anything it says and that putin is weak and threatened (both are true but I thought the kremlin would at least try to say/show otherwise).
How does russia keep messing up this bad? I am constantly shocked and awed.
Yeah, a pointless one that makes them look like predictable idiots. Most will not be unhappy at his death and those that would be are on russia’s side of this conflict. This (if it is what it looks like now) is like making a martyr just for assholes.
Putin is killing people and the purpose of the window assassinations is meant to be clearly not an accident. The whole point is to send a message, not to try and fool people.
If this is backed up at all by anything like a russian source
The Guardian is reporting this:
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but Prigozhin’s longstanding feud with the military and the armed uprising he led in June would give ample motive to the Russian state for revenge. Media channels linked to Wagner quickly suggested that a Russian air defence missile had shot down the plane.
I don’t understand the logic here. When the putsch occured and then ignomously fizzled out, I saw Putin as weak for letting Pringles walk out with a (relative) slap on the wrist. Taking Prigo out of the picture was overdue. Obviously, anyone would feel threatened by an semi-autonomous mercenary army, so removing its leadership and breaking it up is just a rational course of action that probably should have been done sooner from that POV
If they took him out before the deal was made sure, this soon after just shows weakness and a lack of credibility. They did the equivalent to getting into a bar fight, talking it out instead and then in front of every one sucker punching the other guy.
No, they were losing to tractors, and Moskva was sunk without a navy.
Now they’re getting real gear and training to play.
The only thing Russia ever wins are Darwin awards. Fucking being proud of almost hurting a country a fraction of your size right next door, like the US being proud of conquering Ottawa.
All of Europe hates Russia with an all-consuming passion, except sometimes Serbia.
And… that’s where you live! That’s like all my neighbors thinking I’m a piece of shit and me saying “Oh yeah, well there are people in North Korea who don’t hate me!”
See this is why no one can take you people as anything but a joke. Multiple people have asked for your opinion, position, argument, or any thing that would allow someone to seriously discuss anything, but you just reply with a joke, meme or provocation. What inside joke is this law enforcement agent from another country have to do with anything?
Not that you have shame? But this post is literally about putin assassinating a citizen of his in cold blood with no trial alongside several other innocent bystanders.
And you tried to use the word fascist to someone on the internet.
The people that died were fascists and Mercs, why do you care how they died? Do you hate Russia or not? This was a truly successful denazification action if you wanna get silly with it.
“Evil Russians.” Jesus Christ. As if the West did not rehabilitate European fascists immediately after WW2 and end up on the side of imperialism in every conflict around the world for the rest of the century and beyond. Many of which they themselves instigated. Get a fucking grip.
Definitely did not miss that. Whatever you think about the USSR, you cannot, without grotesque distortions of history, say that they rehabilitated European fascism. They executed nazis while the western powers were giving them citizenship, jobs, money, and weapons. And if you think soviet efforts to support revolutionary movements around the globe were “imperialism,” I’m not sure what to tell you besides please read a book.
How do you not see how gladio ties into this? It was basically the US changing sides in a war in Europe that never really ended. WW2 was about competition between imperial powers, and communism versus capitalism (as that struggle led directly to the rise of fascism). The end of the war resolved the imperialist competition, but not the question of communism. The US immediately turned around and started giving the European fascists guns, money and power after they no longer posed an expansionist threat, because fascists were still the most staunch anti communists. Again, this is why the soviets executed fascist war criminals, and the west didn’t even prosecute most of them. They became allies instead. It foreshadowed the west’s willingness to support the most brutal right wingers elsewhere around the world for the rest of the century to choke out any resistance to western neocolonial domination.
I see how you haven’t responded in any meaningful way to my broader point that your “evil russians” statement about cold war military equipment is dumb as shit. But I get the sense you think there is someone scoring this debate and that you get a point for being a clever boy. Great job. I concede. Later.
The enemy is both strong and weak at the same time. Russians are simultaneously cowardly, repulsive and primitive (and evil, according to you), while also being barely held at bay because their innate savage brutality lets them ignore casualties, but like in an evil way, not the good heroic way we ignore casulaties when we drive our tanks headfirst into minefields. Gotcha.
You claim they started with tractors. This is utter nonsense; the AFU started the war as a legitimate military, especially after it took the decade following the Minsk agreements to arm up in anticipation of this war.
You also claim they are pushing Russia back despite the front not moving appreciably in the past year, even during the latest vaunted counteroffensive.
You claim they started with tractors. This is utter nonsense; the AFU started the war as a legitimate military, especially after it took the decade following the Minsk agreements to arm up in anticipation of this war.
Russia used to call itself the 2nd strongest military on Earth.
Now they’re clearly the 2nd strongest military in Ukraine. And they’re sliding down.
You might not understand this, but they literally only survived because everyone was terrified of them, ‘Crazy Ivan’ who snaps and does something stupid.
That illusion SHATTERED with the failure to take Kyiv, it shattered and Europe’s fear turned to rage, rage at being intimidated for decades by a clearly broken joke of a power.
Until last year Russia wasn’t worth our interest, there was nothing there of value or threat, it was a far away, annoying country but it was someone else’s problem.
Now, Europe wants to watch them burn for fun.
If they hadn’t invaded Ukraine they would have been able to hold this illusion for decades more while the oligarchs continued to rob the country to deposit into British banks, but now, Russia is a threat that needs to be dealt with.
Fortunately, it’s not much of a threat, and this shouldn’t take too long, the only reason it’s taking this long right now is because we can only help indirectly through Ukraine.
But Russia is stupid, hopefully they’ll do something Russian and pick a fight with the rest of NATO, because that’s just what they do.
Now they’re clearly the 2nd strongest military in Ukraine.
Delusions like this are sending Ukranians to pointless deaths right now.
The worst part is you will never stop to consider the implications of being so wrong on this when the war is finally resolved (with Russia and Ukraine in basically the same territories as now). Instead, you’ll toss this one in the “history” pile with Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc., you know, the wars where you tell yourself you would have seen through the propaganda had you witnessed it in real time. Then you’ll cheerlead the next war because It’s A Good One This Time.
Delusions like this are sending Ukranians to pointless deaths right now.
Delusions like “a 3 hour special military operation”?
Yeah, I’m the one with delusions, not the country that’s shooting itself in the dick, and literally assassinated several of its citizens in this post without any due process whatsoever.
HA. Sometimes I think people forget how time works. That we did not watch russia make these statements in real time and somehow reddit would come into it as if its mere existence is an augment.
“I would like to emphasise once again that our men and officers are fighting in Ukraine for Russia, for a peaceful life for the citizens of Donbass, and for the denazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine, so that no anti-Russia, which the West has been creating for years right on our border, can threaten us, including with nuclear weapons, as has recently become the case.”
Putin reportedly said. “But if I wanted to, I could take Kiev in two weeks.”
Besides the issue of not being able to verify this was actually said, “if I wanted to I could take Kiev in two weeks” is a lot different from “this entire operation will be over in three hours.” “If I wanted to” in fact implies taking Kiev was not a goal, which aligns with it not being officially stated as a goal.
You put it in quotes and called it a special military op instead of a tour, so it was a little bit obfuscated
Edit: not that you meant to, of course, but it is what it is
As an aside, I think Putin was probably right, but under the condition that he carpet bombs multiple major cities from the first available moment. The war is brutal, but Russia has not been carpet-bombing for a litany of reasons (and it is good that they aren’t)
Lmao so now you’re claiming Putin was using some old English idiom in a private conversation with a Portuguese politician? Then said politician quoted Putin as saying a different phrase?
Well by the conditions the russian federation placed 18 months ago would mean that yes Ukraine is winning. The fact the front lines are static does not mean what you think it does.
why should I give one shit about what russians goals where at the start of the war, the reality is its a meat grinder and the location of said meat grinder requires ukraine to move through it to advance, russia are setting the terms of this conflict and are in control.
I dont care about either sides goals because im not naive enough to buy into military propoganda, which the goals are.
During a war nothing either side says matters, you fatally misunderstand what happens to the media when a war breaks out, it just becomes another instrument of war, and as such nothing can be trusted but the satalite footage of where the war is and boots on the ground reports of people there, everything else is bullshit.
Ok please enlighten me on the winning condition for russia to end this conflict in their favour. No need for “military propoganda” just how does this end in your mind?
Ok, so what does that entail? I don’t think you can just jump on TV and call peace. Ukraine has stated many times that they will not agree to any peace deal without the boarders going back to 2014, russia has stated that will not fly.
Even if you assume its a full on meat grinder for both sides, how does russia win in this situation? They claimed this military operation was to de-milliteraze Ukraine, the opposite has happened. They claimed this military operation was to put a stop to NATO expansion, the opposite has happened. They claimed this military operation was to protect the Donbas people, now they are the group who has suffered the largest casualties in this conflict. They claimed this military operation was to ensure the russian people prosperity and security, the opposite has happened.
That is my point, there is no going back. Even if Ukraine before this was on shaky ground as a nation they are now determined to fight on and on and on. russia also has no credibility as shown today, and this has been stated many times by Ukraine that any treaty with russia is worth less then the paper it is printed on.
So I ask again, how does russia get anyone to show up and sign anything? How do they force peace?
Most of the collective west is currently undergoing a thinly veiled reccession and electing more and more unstable forms of government, like the neo-nazi gov of italy, the shitshow that is UK politics (which is doing worse economically than russia, a country at war) and the clown parade that is the american govs complete inability to do anything for its own people.
There is already talk of pulling aid from Ukraine in many EU states like Austria and the US is starting to pivot towards Taiwan and has been calling this recent push ‘Ukraines last chance’, which they are admitting is failing.
there is no re-armament, none of the western ecomonies are geared for war, only the american military is and they are done sharing there surplus.
all that the west had to give was what it could afford to give away from its reserves without crippling there own defence sectors, russia has a active war ecomony, the west does not.
cltr+f’d ‘aid’ on your first article, no results (other than it hitting other words with aid in it)
that article is literally just about the military industrial complex being spun up in western europe instead of shit like housing lmao, nowhere does it suggest that ukraine will be receiving any of that, only that the money will be going to ‘defence’, this is not a war ecomony and I suspect you dont know what that is.
furthermore I suspect most of that money will be spent replenishing all of the things they just gave away, you realize
“I would like to emphasise once again that our men and officers are fighting in Ukraine for Russia, for a peaceful life for the citizens of Donbass, and for the denazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine, so that no anti-Russia, which the West has been creating for years right on our border, can threaten us, including with nuclear weapons, as has recently become the case.
<a href="">https://web.archive.org/web/20220308032650/http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67903 </a>Parts to note:
“I would like to emphasise once again that our men and officers are fighting in Ukraine for Russia, for a peaceful life for the citizens of Donbass, and for the denazification and demilitarisation of Ukraine, so that no anti-Russia, which the West has been creating for years right on our border, can threaten us, including with nuclear weapons, as has recently become the case.”
The return of Ukraine in its entirety to the russian nation for one.
That’s what you claimed as one of Russia’s war goals. You can see the excerpt you quoted isn’t anything like that, right?
I’m not even trying to do some sick own or anything. You do see the difference between the stated aims and the propaganda circulating about “Russia wants to conquer the whole of Ukraine,” don’t you?
no ones bragging here, the material reality of the situation is ukraines casualities are 3:1 and russia remains in control of the conflict and where the lines are; every ukranian advancement recently has come at heavy cost
no ones bragging here, the material reality of the situation is ukraines casualities are 3:1 and russia remains in control of the conflict and where the lines are; every ukranian advancement recently has come at heavy cost
That’s not even close to true, unless you count civilians, which isn’t surprising because they’re literally fighting in their country.
So yes, be proud, Russia has butchered more civilians!
Losing multiple cities to a tiny domestic invading force of mercenaries after completely losing control of said force due to lack of command discipline, and finally only being able to force them to disband by threatening the families of the mercenaries involved isn’t exactly a sign of strength, though, is it? It’s not exactly what we’d expect of a professional modern military.
It would be like if Erik Prince took his Blackwater army and started marching on Washington, capturing towns along the way, and the US army was helpless to stop them until the American government threatened to hunt down and kill the family members of Blackwater mercenaries.
That would be considered unusual, and not really a sign of political or military strength.
If Erik Prince marched Blackwater through some American cities and – instead of sending the U.S. military to start a hot war on its own soil – American leadership pressured Prince and Blackwater to go home, would you be calling the president weak for not turning Virginia into a battlefield?
I would think American leadership completely dysfunctional if they allowed that situation to occur. If they did not have enough command authority to trust that the US military wouldn’t confront Prince with immediate and overwhelming force when ordered, the US would be a laughingstock. The scenario is borderline unimaginable in a developed country with anything resembling a modern political infrastructure.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Russia. I was originally trained as a Sovietologist, when that was still a thing you could be an -ologist of. I could talk for hours about strategic weapons systems and Russian prep for NBC warfare and what the politics in the Kremlin were like under the troika approach and why the fascistic tendencies of Putin in rejecting Russian political history in favor of personal enrichment and plundering the nation have irrevocably broken Russian politics.
But that’s for another day. Putin responded the way dictators in developing nations do, not like someone who actually has command and control over their modern military forces. I mean, it’s a Russian tradition to threaten the families of people who publicly disagree with leadership. In the US, the forces brought to bear against Blackwater’s attempted putsch would have been so overwhelming that his own men would have arrested him. But as much as I hate Blackwater and think Prince should probably be in prison for war crimes, their cadre was recruited from a different class of people than Wagner.
the US military wouldn’t confront Prince with immediate and overwhelming force
You realize that’s the worst-case scenario of the incident we’re talking about, right? A sane leader would want to avoid starting a pitched battle in their backyard at all costs, and that’s entirely independent of speculation about control over the military.
The scenario is borderline unimaginable in a developed country with anything resembling a modern political infrastructure.
We had a half-assed putsch of our own not even three years ago.
A sane leader would want to avoid starting a pitched battle…
A competent government would have prevented it from occurring. The IS government is hardly a model of efficiency, and that goes double for the military. However, it doesn’t happen here because it’s not something that’s organizationally enabled. Blackwater would be slaughtered in hours, for instance. I absolutely hate Blackwater, I think Prince is a fascist just like Prigo who would absolutely pull a Wagner if he thought he could. He knows he’s better off using bribes to gain power and wealth.
And I wouldn’t call J6 a putsch if we’re using that term in context to describe a military invasion by heavily armed forces gone rogue. But even if we do, the point we are discussing is that it is characteristic of a crap-tier government to be unable to put it down. Trump left the US government almost unable to put down a riot that he invoked and that consisted of a few thousand angry but mostly unarmed rednecks. Again, it was on a different scale, but once a more competent government was in place we saw a thousand arrests, not a threat to kill the families of the J6 rioters. It was a planned violent coup, but the plan was absolute shit because the planners are absolute idiots.
Putin absolutely couldn't let Prigozhin walk, nobody could have. It's not just about the semi-autonomous mercenary army, if a government lets someone get away with an attempted coup d'état they'd effectively encourage others to give it their best shot as well because there was no effective punishment. Assassination is, well, a very Russian approach to the issue, but every government on this planet would have taken some form of action.
I'm not really surprised. They got more and more open about their assassination attempts for years. They're not meant to covertly get rid of enemies, they're very public warnings to other dissidents. It's rule by fear.
Russian assassination are pretty clear. Anyone with half a brain can put the pieces together, but there is just enough plausible deniability that there cannot be direct retaliation legally or politically. It is a clear threat but just barely veiled enough to avoid legitimate retaliatory action via legal or international responses.
Do you think if Putin goes on the record during his next q&a saying “little Ehrmantrotsky here just got what he deserved lol” that there’s any chance the RU ‘legal’ system is coming after him?? Shit I don’t know how to post pics here yet but really
You are absolutely right. The US would have an armed coup leader strung up so fast. Maybe not assassination style, but there would most definitely be a quick trial and execution. If the US government couldn’t catch the person, I imagine that assassination would be on the table.
The implication is that both events were ineffective at achieving anything meaningful, other than tasing one’s balls to death and getting shot by an anti aircraft missile
One side uses its legal system to deal with an institutional threat, while the other performatively offers an olive branch and then stabs them on the back. Not quite the same. One side smells a lot like a mafia
The USA has always been a fascist country (just ask Native Americans and descendants of slaves). If you think slapping a few leaders on the wrist is going to stop fascism here, I would invite you to have a look at the history of Weimar Germany.
This is true, but I was answering to a comment implying an equivalence between the indictment of the traitors in the US and a the extrajudicial plane crash in Russia. If instead of getting a slap on the wrist they were being thrown out of windows at someone’s whim, I would not feel more reassured about the state of the US.
then this will just further enforce option that russia can not be trusted to do anything it says and that putin is weak and threatened
If they let him live, they’re weak. If they kill him, they’re weak.
During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
The USSR is not the russian federation and the later is an oligarchy. Why do you think such cold war arguments (that over simplify) have some sort of play in this conflict?
I also noticed you skated right on by the “can not be trusted” part of my quoted text.
Your entire argument was about the soviet union and its cold war relationship with the US. I have had it up to my nipples here on how fixated you all are on the US, I am not from the US, I don’t like the US, I am sick of somehow having to explain to people who apparently think the US is evil but simultaneously think the world revolves around it.
WE GET IT YOU ARE AMERICAN AND YOU ARE DIFFERENT BUT LIKE MOST AMERICANS CAN NOT STAND WHEN SOMETHING IS NOT ABOUT YOU.
The quote is from “inventing reality by michael parenti”. the cold war is an EXAMPLE, the authors POINT is that media will interpret literally ANY EVENT in a bad way to make enemies look morally inferior and bad.
But I am not media, the post I made is my honest take, and in this case the media stating this news is wagner and the russian state. How does this wall of text help me understand the apparent flaw in my statement?
I am lost and this is a reply to my own statement. May I ask you to expand on what a “lib” is, how I erred to be labelled as one, and finally how it is you think I care about aesthetics?
Can’t speak for anyone else but I may be able to answer this.
A lib is a liberal, someone who is pro-capital, not an anti-capitalist (very little overlap with how liberal tends to be defined in ordinary language in the US). Optics, relating to how people see the event, is idealism not materialism. Liberalism is idealist, unlike Marxism, which is materialist.
The dig at liberalism and aesthetics is likely a critique of the implication that what this looks like has much to do with the material reality. That’s an aesthetic argument. It doesn’t matter what this looks like because the optics don’t affect the material relations. Someone who elevates the optics at the expense of the material relations is making an idealist, likely a liberal argument.
Hence the comment embodying an aesthetic argument of the kind that liberals often make.
You’re welcome. I’m glad you’re taking this in the spirit in which it’s intended. When Marxists criticise idealism, the target is the liberal world outlook, not the individual.
By implication, really. Focusing on what people think of Russia’s/Putin’s trustworthiness rather than on it’s record or the factors that would keep it honest, so to speak. It’s Ukraine that violated Minsk, apparently prompted by France, Germany, and ‘NATO’. Looking at the optics, that seems a little more duplicitous than assassinating someone who attempted a coup (if this was an assassination and if what happened before can be called a coup).
Would I trust a single person, e.g. Putin to uphold an international agreement? It doesn’t matter. It’s not a one-man show. War is expensive and the longer it goes on for the more expensive it becomes, in support as well as the cost of arms, soldiers, etc.
Nobody has to trust Putin. An agreement would be maintained because material factors require it to be maintained. What westerners think it’s by-the-by. (I’m assuming you’re not Russian as you were asking about Russian sources—I’m not asking you to confirm or deny as I don’t want you to dox yourself; I’m just trying to give an answer that makes sense from the available evidence.)
I think the implied argument is that if Putin is untrustworthy and if you’re implying that means that he can’t be trusted to comply with agreements made with Ukraine, then we need to look at historic agreements between Russia and Ukraine. Two recent agreements between them include Minsk I and II. Ukraine, not Russia, violated both.
Both sides might have violated the first Minsk agreement. As to who violated it first? My understanding was that Ukraine did. Eventually it broke down. As for the second, it depends whether you consider an omission as bad as an action. Ukraine violated Minsk II by ignoring it, which led to the SMO: …yale.edu/…/frustrated-refusals-give-russia-secur…. Interestingly, France and Germany were part of these talks and officials have stated that they only ever intended to delay a war to better arm Ukraine; i.e. the NATO/Ukrainian side never intended to honour the agreement from the beginning.
What did Ukraine do to violate the agreement? From all I can read there is not much short of re arming with nukes that Ukraine could even do to break the agreement (Minsk I). And what do you mean ignoring the second one?
More than anything else, it was the refusal of Ukraine to implement the provisions of Minsk 2 – especially the provision that would give the predominantly Russian-speaking regions a special constitutional status – that caused Russia to threaten military action against Ukraine. Time after time in recent weeks, Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov made it clear in meetings and press conferences that the key to resolving the situation in and around Ukraine was the full implementation of Minsk 2, and many hoped the Normandy format meeting of representatives of the leaders of the four countries in Berlin on Feb. 10, two weeks after they had met in Paris for eight hours, would produce enough progress toward the full implementation of Minsk 2 to ward off the threat of a Russian invasion.
Yeah that is the russian statement but reading the agreement leaves me thinking that is not 100% on the level. They seem to think they where not an involved party in the agreement and did not have abide by it. Here is a translation of the agreement, if you have a better version let me know.
… the refusal of Ukraine to implement the provisions of Minsk 2 ….
What Russia did in response would be in Russia’s statement. But here the writer is reporting that Ukraine refused to implement Minsk II.
If your link is only a translation of the agreement, it won’t say anything about who violated it, so I’m unsure what good it does to comb through it. I don’t see how the clauses are relevant without a factual chronology from after it’s signing, such as the one in my link. I’ll note that I’m happy to be presented with contrary evidence but also note that the source I provided is from Yale university—hardly a pro-Russian outlet.
Oh I am sure he is just fine with it, but it does not really give any confidence to anyone entering into any agreement with russia with a 3rd nation brokering (say a ceasefire).
Wow. They shot it down, too, lol. The members of the air defense battery are suddenly going to get their notice to head to the front if they haven’t already.
Zero percent chance the Russian military shot down the plane of a guy who just rebelled against the state accidentally. The order had to come from the top.
bbc.co.uk
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