Russians: Now Using Poison Underpants

[Cora Persephona]

5 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Looks like more of North America is being closed off to Russian planes

Yeah they had to think of that cause Vlad Tepes II will probably do a tit for tat thing and ban US plans for Russian airspace. 

Hey, Vlad Tepes was sadistic and violent, but he was at least actually trying to defend his people from the Turkish invaders. Putin doesn't even have that going for him.

[EmCatlyn]

On 2/25/2022 at 5:37 PM, Dandruff said:

I've been pondering the same.  Why now and not before?  Why now and not later?

Idly speculating whether there could be any small association between Trump's current vulnerabilities in the US, his relationship/interactions with Putin, and Putin's timing.  Might he have been expecting sanctions and widespread disdain in the near future, regardless?

I am sorry to say that according to many Republicans (not all of them MAGA-nuts) the theory is that Trump was “strong” and Putin respected him.  Also, according to some of these people, Trump would have been able to work something out with Putin.

Don’t yell at me about this.  I disagree completely.  I am just reporting.  I

[EmCatlyn]

10 hours ago, klein_roeschen said:

Honestly, I fear such a scenario. Hitler only offed himself because their wasn't anything left to throw at the allied forces and even then he ordered practically a scorched earth for Germany. With Putin in such a situation we can easily get to the point where he lauches the nuclear weapons in a "I will take you with me when I go" scenario.

I need an “I agree completely and I am terrified” emoticon.  I only pray that the people around Putin have enough concern for their own skins that they will stop him.  

Edited March 2, 2022 by EmCatlyn
Trim the quote

[Ozlsn]

I am kind of in awe of this to be honest. It's keeping morale up, it's amusing - and it's also a promise of future normality, and income tax.

 

[Dandruff]

37 minutes ago, EmCatlyn said:

I only pray that the people around Putin have enough concern for their own skins that they will stop him.  

Might depend on whether they trust each other enough to suggest plans.  I imagine they're a skittish bunch.

[WiseGirl]

I continue to be terrified  and feel so helpless over the invasion.

1. Dear reporters,  stop calling it a "conflict" it's an invasion of one country lead by a madman to take over another country. If successful, what will stop him from taking over other countries?

2. I need to do something that will actually help in real time if possible. Some organizations that have been suggested to me to donate to include World Central Kitchen (feeding refugees in real time), Voices of Love, . (Supporting children of Ukraine) Choose Love for Ukraine,(Working directly with refugees), Charlie Macksy shirt for Ukraine If you have others to suggest to me please PM or comment.

[Howl]

16 hours ago, klein_roeschen said:

With Putin in such a situation we can easily get to the point where he launches the nuclear weapons in a "I will take you with me when I go" scenario.

Cue Fiona Hill refresher & bona fides

• Former official at the U.S. National Security Council specializing in Russian and European affairs
• Co-author of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Geopolitics in the 21st Century)
• Testified during Trump's 1st impeachment hearings

She believes that Putin would exercise a nuclear option. 

‘Yes, He Would’: Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes  Putin is trying to take down the entire world order, the veteran Russia watcher said in an interview. But there are ways even ordinary Americans can fight back.

1 hour ago, WiseGirl said:

1. Dear reporters,  stop calling it a "conflict" it's an invasion of one country lead by a madman to take over another country.

The front page of The Austin American Statesman (newspaper for the capital city of Texas) has this in small text:  "Russian forces step up attacks on Ukraine's civilian areas" pointing the reader to page 9A.  This seems like a ridiculously anodyne description of the current utterly savage bombing targeting civilians in hospitals, schools, apartment buildings and other residential areas. 

[Smash!]

After seeing the quick and united action the world took against Putin I‘m very optimistic that he can and will be stopped. I think it‘s very much a possibility that he uses nuclear weapons but everyone now anticipates it and is prepared. Don’t forget the Russian economy is tanking massively. If the Russians start going against him because they can’t afford food anymore Putin is done.

War is horrible and brutal. Not just in Ukraine but in Syria, Jemen and on the African continent. But those places where war has been part of people‘s life’s for years now are relatively far away. Now it happens basically on our doorstep and this is why it is so shocking. We thought Europe wouldn‘t see such atrocities anymore after going through WW2. 

[Howl]

27 minutes ago, Smash! said:

Don’t forget the Russian economy is tanking massively. If the Russians start going against him because they can’t afford food anymore Putin is done.

Yes, Putin had total and complete control of the domestic narrative for a day or two until the economic sanctions hit and hit hard and are now affecting everyone, from mobligarchs to ordinary citizens.  Ordinary citizens may still be somewhat in the dark about Ukraine, but word must be spreading fast, especially when they can't get money from the ATM and Russians are currently restricted from leaving the country with more than a paltry amount of money.  It may also be that Russians can't access their money to buy food.  

Someone on social media was recommending that people look up restaurants in Russia and instead of leaving food reviews, leave a statement about the status of the assault and destruction of Ukraine.  

On the dark side, there have been warnings that crypto currency will be used to move and stash Putin and mobligarchy dirty money, and no financial entity has moved to plug that hole. 

And Gazprom has cratered.  It's now essentially a penny stock.  

 

 

[fraurosena]

16 hours ago, Dandruff said:

Thanks - I've been poking around but haven't found anything yet.

Am trying to figure out the near-term motivation for Ukraine's request for membership.  If there's no benefit during the crisis, then perhaps there would be afterwards; e.g., $$s and assistance for rebuilding.  OTOH, as things appear now, Ukraine could probably expect a lot of help anyway.

Another thought is that EU candidate status could somehow hinder Putin/Russia from claiming Ukraine as part of its territory.  No clue about the potential legalities, but the application certainly seems to demonstrate Ukraine's intent to ally itself elsewhere.  How might this make a difference?

I suspect there's also a PR element (and I'm not knocking it).

This is what I could find:

Quote

A country applying to become a member state of the European Union.

Candidate country status is conferred by the European Council on the basis of an opinion from the European Commission, drawn up following an application for membership of the European Union (EU) by the country concerned.

Candidate country status does not give an automatic a right to join the EU. The Commission scrutinises the application in the light of the accession criteria (Copenhagen criteria), while the accession process starts with the European Council decision to open accession negotiations.

Depending on their circumstances, a candidate country may be required to institute a reform process to bring their legislation in line with the EU acquis and to strengthen their infrastructure and administration if necessary. The accession process is based on the pre-accession strategy, which provides instruments such as financial aid.

Accession and membership of the EU depends on the progress made by the candidate country, which is regularly assessed and monitored by the Commission.

If I'm interpreting the bolded sentence correctly, then a candidate country enters a so-called accession process. During this process it can receive financial aid in order to implement necessary reforms and to strengthen infrastructure and administration. 

This financial aid will of course be absolutely necessary once Putin has been vanquished and Ukraine freed from the invading military. 

Sadly, it looks like Putin has used a vacuum bomb in Charkov last night. Note that this has not been confirmed, but experts are saying this explosion looks like a MOAB.

 

[Workingmom]

 

[Workingmom]

I hope this is real and no fake news. Could be a turning point if the oligarchs are changing sides

 

[Smee]

I know it’s necessary, and the civilian people of Ukraine are suffering even more, but I hate how it’s ordinary people who lose the most, not the political leaders who make these decisions. My friends made it back to Sydney so their son’s surgery can go ahead. But as news comes in of various places shutting their airspace to Russian planes, Russian people unable to access money etc, I keep thinking of them and how if they’d waited just another 2 or 3 days that little boy would be in excruciating pain indefinitely. Civilians are being murdered in Ukraine, and the civilians in Russia are being thrown into poverty. Putin’s fucking ego is responsible for so much suffering.

[JoyfulSel]

9 hours ago, Smash! said:

War is horrible and brutal. Not just in Ukraine but in Syria, Jemen and on the African continent. But those places where war has been part of people‘s life’s for years now are relatively far away. Now it happens basically on our doorstep and this is why it is so shocking. We thought Europe wouldn‘t see such atrocities anymore after going through WW2. 

Or the 90s since my family was driven from our homes in the Balkans. I was born during some of the worst part of the beginning of the war in late 1992 and my parents watching this on tv is bringing back the horrific memories of the siege in Sarajevo and the atrocities that occurred. It's horrifying.

[Workingmom]

 

[Workingmom]

 

Another yacht confiscated . The Amore Vero of Igor Setsjin. They were busy prepping to leave. Customs confiscated the yacht, so they couldn't leave 

[Xan]

The interesting thing to me is that these oligarchs frequently have more than one superyacht.  If I were a regular Russian citizen, I'd have already gotten out my torch and pitchfork and gotten a crowd together about this.  It's pretty much outright thievery to skim off the top enough to own multiple mega-yachts.  

[47of74]

19 hours ago, Workingmom said:

I hope this is real and no fake news. Could be a turning point if the oligarchs are changing sides

 

Apparently this is legit

Quote

A $1,000,000 bounty for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin was offered to military officers by Russian entrepreneur Alex Konanykhin in a post he published on social media this week, as Russia continued its invasion of Ukraine.

"I promise to pay $1,000,000 to the officer(s) who, complying with their constitutional duty, arrest(s) Putin as a war criminal under Russian and international laws," wrote Konanykhin on LinkedIn. "Putin is not the Russian president as he came to power as the result of a special operation of blowing up apartment buildings in Russia, then violated the Constitution by eliminating free elections and murdering his opponents."

"As an ethnic Russian and a Russian citizen, I see it as my moral duty to facilitate the denazification of Russia. I will continue my assistance to Ukraine in its heroic efforts to withstand the onslaught of Putin's Orda," added the businessman. Orda is the Russian word for "horde," a predatory, plundering gang.

The post was accompanied by an image with a photo of Putin and the words "Wanted: Dead or alive. Vladimir Putin for mass murder."

I don't see this as being the thing that takes Putin down.   Konanykhin has been opposed to Putin for years and lives in the United States after fleeing Russia over a decade ago.  With Putin trying to isolate his people from actual news most people in Russia may not even get wind of this offer.

[47of74]

The Russian version of Fucker Carlson has a sad because he lost his luxury villas on Lake Como

Quote

Russian TV host Vladimir Soloviev has delivered a furious rant on-air over European Union sanctions which caused him to lose his luxury villas in Italy.

Sanctions were put in place following Russia's invasion of Ukraine with some of the country's most prominent individuals being targeted.

The aim is to "weaken Russia's economic base and its capacity to modernise", with hopes a freeze on Russian assets in the EU will help do this.

TV host Vladimir Soloviev fumes on air after losing Italian homes in EU sanctions. Source: YouTube

European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen also said last week they will "stop the access of Russian banks to the European financial market".

Yeah, well, dude if you want to complain go complain to Vlad the Invader because he's the one who caused all your economic pain to happen.

[Alisamer]

23 hours ago, Smash! said:

I think it‘s very much a possibility that he uses nuclear weapons but everyone now anticipates it and is prepared.

I... don't think there's any preparation to be done for the sort of massive nuclear weapons Russia was reportedly building back in the day. If they finished any of those and if they figured out how to deliver it, we're talking a whole city basically gone in a single flash. 

Youtube shuffled up a video yesterday that was done several years ago about "how to survive a nuclear bomb". It contained info about the big weapons that had been tested like Tsar Bomba, but concluded that the more likely concern at that point was small yield improvised nuclear devices exploded by terrorists. They clearly did not anticipate Putin's current state of mind. 

But for the record, the consensus was that if you were far enough from the center of the blast not to be instantly vaporized or burned beyond help, and weren't permanently blinded by it, you'd have about 10-20 minutes to get to safety before the fallout commenced. The recommendation was to treat it like a tornado essentially - get somewhere sturdy away from windows and with as much solid structure as possible between you and the outside, and expect to stay there a minimum of 48 hours and up to a couple weeks to let the majority of the radiation decay. If you are outdoors when the fallout starts, get inside quickly, remove your outer clothes carefully (so as not to shake off radioactive dust) and bag them up in plastic put as far away from you as possible. Take a shower, washing your hair but not using conditioner. (This was a UK based channel, where I think they often have water storage tanks in houses - so no idea if city water is safe in the US, well water might be fine though.) Then hole up indoors for a bare minimum 48 hours. If you start vomiting at any point in this process, you may want to start writing goodbye notes. 

I don't want to be a fearmonger, at all. But better to have an idea of what to do than to be clueless, IMO!

TL/DR: In the very unlikely event of a nuclear attack, treat it like a tornado, get as much sturdy structure between you and the outside as possible, but expect to stay sheltered for at least 48 hours afterward. If you survive the blast, the fallout that starts afterward is the main danger.

[Xan]

11 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

TL/DR: In the very unlikely event of a nuclear attack, treat it like a tornado, get as much sturdy structure between you and the outside as possible, but expect to stay sheltered for at least 48 hours afterward. If you survive the blast, the fallout that starts afterward is the main danger.

I'm old enough to remember nuclear drills.  Additionally, I was in 4-H and did a unit on Rural Civil Defense that included giving talks about fallout shelters.  My dad was an Army guy and we built a fallout shelter in our basement.  I decided early on that, if a bomb fell, I was going to go outside and bask in the radiation rather than stay in that fallout shelter with with my entire family sleeping on army cots and using a toilet with no walls around it.

Radiation travels in a straight line.  What you ideally want is as much material between yourself and the radiation so basements are better if you have one.  The surrounding dirt will help.  Anything you can put between yourself and radiation is a plus.  I'd go to an inner room in the house and pull as much furniture as possible to create more walls.  Then you just hunker down and stay in for as long as you can.  

You could go out after a couple of weeks but, let's be honest, it still wouldn't be safe and we don't know what that would mean to the food supply, crops, and future health problems for everyone involved.   What I mostly learned about radiation is how bad it is and how much I hope we eventually disarm everyone.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Xan

[Howl]

My understanding is the Russian "nuclear option" is low yield nuclear bombs.  

Truthout published  “Low-Yield” Nuclear Weapons Could Pose Greater Threat of Nuclear War this week and includes a 2014 scenario detailing the destructive power of a low-yield nuclear bomb.  

<snip>

Snyder says the term “low-yield” is misleading because even the lowest yield nuclear weapon is tremendously destructive. In 2014, Snyder coauthored a report which considered the humanitarian consequences of a 12-kiloton nuclear weapon being detonated at Europe’s largest port facility in Rotterdam.

In addition to the 60,000 people estimated to be killed within hours or days, many more would be exposed to lethal doses of radiation. An unprecedented disruption of transportation and services throughout Europe would follow as a trail of radioactive fallout spread across the rural “green heart” of central Holland and decimated the Netherland’s vital agricultural sector.

[fraurosena]

Well, if the bomb falls, I'll also be one of thise who'll go outside to speed up the inevitable process. I'd rather go quickly than waste away.

That said, although I'm almost sure that Putin will eventually give the order, I'm not nearly so sure that the order will actually be carried out. Putin by noe has become a madman. Not all Russians are, even if they follow him ideologically, and I've got faith in my fellow humans to do the right thing, if only for self preservation. Nuclear fallout isn't restricted to the west. If Ukraine gets bombed, radiation will also travel to Russia...

[Cartmann99]

 

[47of74]

Ok, whoever made the legal threats, do you not know who you are fornicating with?

Quote

The United Kingdom will not let legal threats hinder its ability to sanction Russian oligarchs, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss warned on Thursday. 

"I'm very clear that legal threats will have no impact on our ability to sanction oligarchs," Truss told reporters in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. 

The UK is "absolutely determined" to sanction Russian oligarchs, the foreign secretary stressed, adding that it is working through "a further list" of oligarchs to sanction. 

Dude, the Queen is in her 90s but can still probably fire a machine gun with the best of em like she could in the 1990s.