Russians: Now Using Poison Underpants

[EmCatlyn]

31 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

If you put Putin and Trump together I don't even think you'd get a full suit of cards, much less a full deck.

No problem.  Both of them believe that they can call the cards whatever they want and win.  

[fraurosena]

Putin lost his 'Trump' card and is too late in realizing he overplayed a losing hand.and can't bluff his way out of it.

[47of74]

Vlad the Invader really fucked over Russian airlines. 

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The United Kingdom (UK) Government has announced today that it is introducing new sanctions against the Russian airline sector. State-owned Aeroflot, Russia’s largest airline, Ural Airlines and Rossiya Airlines will now be unable to sell their unused, lucrative landing slots at UK airports – preventing Russia from cashing in on an estimated £50 million.

Uk’s airport Airport Coordination Limited (ACL) added that none of those Russian carriers will be allocated slots for next Winter 2022 season nor it can grant alleviation for cancellations made by those carriers in the current Summer 2022 season as a result of the current flight bans.

This also prevents any transfer or exchange of any slots held by these carriers: “slots over which Aeroflot, Rossiya and Ural currently hold historic rights for the Winter 2022 season at UK coordinated airports will be returned to the slot pool for re-allocation to other carriers,” ACL wrote in a press release.

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[47of74]

Yeah I heard about that too.  They also banned Morgan Freeman.

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Russia has published a list of 963 Americans who have been "permanently banned" from entering the country in response to US sanctions related to the invasion of Ukraine.

Actor Morgan Freeman, 84, is among the names on the list, apparently as a result of appearing in a video clip in 2017 that accused the Russian government of meddling with American democracy.

Freeman narrated the promotional video for an organisation named The Committee to Investigate Russia, CNN reports.

The video was directed by filmmaker Rob Reiner, best known for movies including The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally, and he has also been added to the Kremlin's list.

I want to know if there's a way to tell the Russian government to kindly add me to that list and to go fuck themselves. 

And fucking hell, being banned by Vlad the Invader's government is more like a fucking badge of honor at this fucking point.

[47of74]

This is Faux News levels of stupid right here...

Yeah, the Ukrainians were able to use the reporter's info to take out the Russian artillery piece.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Faux News already "accidentally" do that to our troops at least once?

The Ukrainians made sure to thank the Russian propagandist for helping them too...

 

[47of74]

Nice job Vlad the Invader

 

[EmCatlyn]

On 5/21/2022 at 6:04 PM, Cartmann99 said:

 

Russians may be worried about ghosts.  There was a credible report that Russian military intelligence was concerned about Ukrainians practicing the “dark arts.”  

In another story (possibly apocryphal) a woman in a small Ukrainian village got the Russians to bypass the village by claiming that all the women in the village were witches and would curse the penis of any soldier that bothered them.   (This was less credible, but too good not to repeat.)

[47of74]

12 hours ago, EmCatlyn said:

Russians may be worried about ghosts.  There was a credible report that Russian military intelligence was concerned about Ukrainians practicing the “dark arts.”  

In another story (possibly apocryphal) a woman in a small Ukrainian village got the Russians to bypass the village by claiming that all the women in the village were witches and would curse the penis of any soldier that bothered them.   (This was less credible, but too good not to repeat.)

Cool.  Yeah I could see the three of them swinging by Ukraine to help out.  I don't think any of them would come back from the dead just to take a vacation to Russia.

[47of74]

Starbucks has also decided to pull out from Russia

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In a memo to employees Monday, the Seattle coffee giant said it decided to close its 130 stores and no longer have a brand presence in Russia. Starbucks said it will continue to pay its nearly 2,000 Russian employees for six months and help them transition to new jobs.

Starbucks’ move follows McDonald’s exit from the Russian market last week. McDonald’s is selling its stores — which are almost all owned by the company — to an existing Russian franchisee. The stores won’t be allowed to use McDonald’s name or menu.

Starbucks’ stores are owned and operated by Alshaya Group, a Kuwait-based franchise operator. A spokesperson for Alshaya referred questions to Starbucks on Monday.

Starbucks entered the Russian market in 2007. In early March, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Starbucks announced that it would keep its Russian stores open but donate any profits to humanitarian relief efforts in Ukraine.

 

[EmCatlyn]

9 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Starbucks has also decided to pull out from Russia

 

I don’t know how Starbucks is handling it, but McDonalds is selling a whole chain of their restaurants in Russia, and the rebranded chain will be known as “Uncle Vanya’s” if the deal is approved by the Russian government.

[47of74]

19 minutes ago, EmCatlyn said:

I don’t know how Starbucks is handling it, but McDonalds is selling a whole chain of their restaurants in Russia, and the rebranded chain will be known as “Uncle Vanya’s” if the deal is approved by the Russian government.

I imagine since the Russian Starbucks locations are largely owned by a Kuwait franchisee they’ll either close them or convert them to another brand. Course I don’t see Caribou or Dunkin moving in. 

[EmCatlyn]

The war in Ukraine is in a critical state.  The Russians keep gaining territory and killing Ukrainians, but the Russian forces are judged to be demoralized and losing equipment rapidly.

It is probable that Russia plans to grab all they can and then when they begin to lose, sue for peace but demand to keep the land they are currently occupying.  Toward that end, they have begun removing Ukrainians from the occupied territories, sending them to Russia and replacing them with Russian and Chechnian settlers.  They are renaming streets and buildings in Russian and introducing a new Russian language school curriculum in the occupied areas.  The point is that they want to erase the Ukrainian-ness of the region.

Most observers would call this attempted genocide.

[EmCatlyn]

Back in March. when Ukrainian soldiers passed her house, Anna Ivanova  greeted them with a Soviet flag.  The Ukrainians stomped on the Soviet flag.  The woman was offended.   The video (by an Ukrainian soldier) went viral.  The Russians loved it.

 The Russians took it as a sign of support for the invasion.  They were wrong.

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“I wish I could call Putin and tell him: Why was it impossible to solve this question without war, so neither their boys nor ours would have to die? It's a huge calamity, for Ukraine and for Russia," Ivanova told the Journal. "What have we, Ukraine, done to Russia so they have to kill us? Russia started it. Ukraine didn't touch them."

Ivanova explained that she has long-viewed the Soviet flag as a symbol of peace that helped end World War II against Nazi-led Germany and that it had nothing to do with support for Putin.

"To me, it is a flag of peace, the flag with which the war ended in Germany. It is not a flag of evil but a flag of love," she said.

Ivanova previously told The Moscow Times on May 11 that it was "awful that Russia came to us with war. Very awful."

Despite her actual views, Ivanova has been touted by Russian leaders and state-run media, and is referred to fondly as "Grandma Anna." A statue of her was even erected by Russia in Mariupol, with her image also being displayed by supporters of Putin's war in Moscow.

Donbas Woman Used as Russian Symbol MSN.COM

In fact, the poor woman was hoping that waving the Soviet flag would remind the soldiers (whom she thought were Russian initially) of peace between Ukraine and Russia.  It didn’t work.  

Her village and home were destroyed by the Russians.

Russians destroy Woman’s House (Newsweek)

To add to the irony in all this, although she is characterized as a very old woman and a grandmother by the Russians, she is, in fact, the same age as Putin (69) and not a grandmother.  Her four children all died young and she has led a miserable life—now made worse by the Russian invasion.

Edited May 29, 2022 by EmCatlyn
Got some facts wrong and fixed.

[47of74]

Further demonstrations of how Vlad the Invader fucked his own people. 

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The MOEX Russia Index is down more than 36% year-to-date as of Friday afternoon.

And international investors in Russian securities have endured restrictions in managing and valuing their positions since the war began.

Based on a model that links stocks and bond markets, MSCI on Friday said the market for credit-default swaps suggests that Russian stocks “may be essentially worthless” in contrast to the prices listed on the exchange.

 

[47of74]

China has banned some Russian aircraft from its airspace. 

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The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has reportedly banned Airbus and Boeing aircraft operated by Russian airlines from entering Chinese airspace. 

According to the report, some memos claim the ban extends only to the aircraft that have “double registration” due to being reregistered in Russia, while others say all Russian-operated aircraft of the two manufacturers were banned. 

A source within one airline explained that China justified the ban because some aircraft “stopped meeting ICAO and IATA requirements”, RBK reports. 

Meanwhile, according to sources cited by the Telegram channel Aviatorschina, the Russian airlines that operate domestically-made aircraft, such as the Tu-204 and the Il-76, continue flying to China. 

 

[EmCatlyn]

On a Podcast hosted by Lex Fridman, a woman* speaking of the successful way Zelenskiy and his people are running the war and presenting it to the world claimed that this is

Quote

the first time reality TV has been about reality instead of fake.

I rather liked this idea and wonder what others think. 
 

 

*The woman is obviously an expert, but I couldn’t find her name in the clip that I accessed through r/ukraine on Reddit. 

[EmCatlyn]

Russians are taking Ukrainian children into Russia even though the children have families in Ukraine.

Quote

Child’s message from Russia to her aunt:

“Aunty  Ira, I'm in Russia, I was taken here by the Russian military. I'm writing to you in secret, I managed to get a phone for a few minutes. My mother is no longer alive, she was killed under fire. They say I'm an orphan. But I'm not an orphan, I have you, I have grandparents. There are so many children like me here. They say they want to leave us in Russia. And I don't want to stay in Russia! Aunty Ira, get me out of here. I want to go home, to Ukraine," 

OSCE Talks about Abduction of Ukrainian Children

[47of74]

A Russian cargo plane has run up quite the parking tab.

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A Volga-Dnepr An-124 has now accumulated over $100,000 in parking fees after being impounded at Toronto Pearson Airport.

The aircraft has been unable to take off since February 27th after Canada's Transport Minister, Omar Alghabra, announced the closure of Canadian airspace to all Russian aircraft.

Standard aircraft parking rates at Toronto Pearson Airport amount to $1,065.60 per 24 hours, which works out at $0.74 per minute. The cargo aircraft has been stranded since February 27th, leaving it at 96 days on the ground and counting.

As of today, the Antonov An-124's parking fee stands at $102,298 and there is no clear indication of when it may be allowed to leave. Authorities in Canada have insisted that the airspace ban will remain for the foreseeable future.

Jesus I thought Minneapolis parking was expensive.

Edited June 3, 2022 by 47of74

[47of74]

Sure Vlad, whatever

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a renewed threat to Western leaders that Moscow would order strikes on new targets should the U.S. supply Ukraine with long-range missiles, according to a state-owned mouthpiece.

The TASS news agency quoted Putin's comments from a Sunday, June 5, interview on Rossiya-1, where the Russian leader mentioned the delivery of U.S. rocket systems to Ukraine.

Putin said if the long-range rockets were delivered that Russia would strike new locations, although he stopped short of mentioning where these targets might be.

He added: "If it now comes to rockets and they are supplied, we will draw conclusions from that and employ our weapons that we have in sufficient quantities to strike those facilities that we are not attacking so far."

 

[WiseGirl]

 

[EmCatlyn]

8 hours ago, WiseGirl said:

 

Zelenskiy is a good leader.  He went to what is probably the most dangerous place in the war right now.  He took a risk to boost morale among the troops. 
 

[47of74]

2 hours ago, EmCatlyn said:

Zelenskiy is a good leader.  He went to what is probably the most dangerous place in the war right now.  He took a risk to boost morale among the troops. 
 

Yes indeed.  I couldn't see Orange Florida Man doing anything even remotely similar.  He'd mark his laundry if he had to do something like that.   Of course fuck face would only want to go there to have a bund meeting with the Russian troops.

[47of74]

Someone had to cancel a trip

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Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was forced to cancel a planned trip to Serbia after three of its neighbours refused access to their airspace following the war in Ukraine.

Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro all refused to allow Mr Lavrov’s plane to use their airspace, according to Serbian media.

A Kremlin source confirmed the news to Russia’s Interfax news agency, adding: “Our diplomacy has yet to master teleportation”.

Mr Lavrov is among a string of Kremlin officials to be sanctioned by the west over the invasion of Ukraine. But Serbia, which has close cultural ties to Moscow, has refused to take sides during the conflict.

 

[EmCatlyn]

13 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Yes indeed.  I couldn't see Orange Florida Man doing anything even remotely similar.  He'd mark his laundry if he had to do something like that.   Of course fuck face would only want to go there to have a bund meeting with the Russian troops.

I don’t think most US presidents would go to whatever part of “the front” was really dangerous. Our “fronts” tend to be farther away and there is more emphasis on keeping the president safe so he can run the country.

Also, since our country isn’t in danger of being destroyed by an invasion, there isn’t as much need for our president to take risks and set examples of courage.

That being said, the current president of the US is doing the right thing in this conflict.  The US’s financial support, the weapons, the training and the intelligence have all been essential to Ukraine’s chance of remaining an independent country.

It would be nice if we could have a president with Zelenskyy’s courage and charisma, but if there is only one to go around, Ukraine needs him more.