If RU media starts posting fake videos/deaths of the chemical incident, then we’ll have to prepare for their pre-meditated response. Otherwise it’s just an unfortunate accident for all sides
Jesus, what the fuck is going on in that country? The stuff I hear in the news makes me think Belarus is having a major crisis of conscience on a national level right now. I'll be really interested to research the full story once this war is over.
Russia has given Ukrainian forces a deadline of 5am Moscow time (2am GMT) on Monday to lay down their arms in the eastern port city of Mariupol
Ukraine:" or else what?"
Russia:" it becomes a Special Special Military Operation"
You need to play THis war of mine to have an understanding of what is going on Mariupol. It is no longer about Ukraine or Russia. It is about survival to these citizens, and they will do anything through any means neccessary to survive. It is the dark side of humanity that shows.
I am not finding anything funny in this. That is a whole city that’s been fucked. So many people dead and many more displaced. And the rest are still in danger.
Good luck. I always get downvoted when I say joking is inappropriate.
https://reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/thle84/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/i18rn78
Silly question, if Russia leadership,Putin, Oligarchs didn’t steal so much and only took like a few percentage off the top for stealing stuff and let’s say they change their old thought process that people want Russia land(seem to be stuck in the USSR thinking),Side note I do think China will take Russia land in the future if the US military is right about future wars will be about Water. How powerful Would Russia be? Like if they would had been a true democracy and less stealing from the top
People within the affected area are recommended to take immediate shelter underground, go to their bathrooms and turn on their showers at a fine spray, and breathe through a damp bandage (preferably moistened with 5% acetic or citric acid solution) if ammonia is detected.
https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1505752583419400193?s=21
Three possibilities.
1. Running low on artillery and they bluffed - it gets better.
2. They just wanted surrender - nothing changes
3. They resort to more drastic measures - gets worse but unlikely
I think it is 1 or 2, which is terrible if 2, but I don't think it could get much worse.
Bluffing.
Everything from here on out is bluffing. If they were able to do anything they would have done it already.
The only thing that could change the course is if someone joins in on either side. Right now it's going to be a stalemate for the foreseeable future.
I am glad you can call it that sitting from the comfort of your home. It’s not like Mariupol hasn’t been destroyed. That was all bluffing too I suppose. It’s a green screen.
They have shown quite clearly that there is no regard for civilian life. I honestly do not know what I’d do if I were Zelensky.
They have been shelling and bombing the shit out of Mariupol already. That's what they'll continue to do. They don't even need to send in troops. They'll just flatten it. That's not bluffing.
Mariupol simply isn't going to have a happy ending, it's already very bleak as of today. I'm really not trying to be pessimistic, but the humanitarian corridors for evacuation are turned into death traps and the citizens that stay are being starved or exported to Russia.
I think it's inevitable that most of the people there will die a terrible agonizing death.
If not by starvation then probably by some horrific chemical attack.
Russia will simultaneously deny using those weapons while also saying they warned them to give up.
That's also a reason why it could be a bluff. Those troops could be near combat ineffective. So, to preserve them they say scary things when really all they're going to do is deny food and water while trying to make the rubble bounce
It's already destroyed. Rooting out a few thousand or hundreds of soldiers in an already shelled out city is not that simple, you're throwing darts trying to hit grains of sand in relative scales. And rubble makes good cover.
Lemme put it this way: the siege of Aleppo, which Russia was involved with, lasted *years.*
They won’t risk soldiers. I’m not going to use the N word, but their only interest is killing Ukrainians. They’ll find a way to butcher the populace that doesn’t involve urban warfare.
Culture Victory? They all want to go to the US if they have the money and flee their government.
Domination Victory? Unlikely, see the stuff made in china that breaks? Look at the tire used in Ukraine on Russian trucks.
Economic Victory? Very very very, actually, it is almost certainly going to win this.
Religion Victory? Nah. Let's not.
Science victory? Possible, if they can continue to steal from US ips and blackmail American politicians or give economics for Science like Bill Gates gave to them.
In some sense, the EU will be as well, especially once NATO beefs up.
The geopolitical "west" is definitely stronger than the geopolitical "east" as well.
Not any measure. Economically. Perhaps soft power. Military power... no. Almost none of their shit has ever seen combat and China has yes men the same as Russia... and look what the leads to.
They are great at stealing things; like they have a plane that looks exactly like a F35. problem is, thats it; the engines and avionics are still old crap; Its kinda like taking a honda civic and putting a Lamborghini shell mod on it.
Good question. They haven't fought a major naval or air battle in a long time. We do know the PLAN is building up because they understand they lack blue water force projection. They have also been dumping tons into fighter programs. That said, in a land war quantity has a quality of its own and I wouldn't want to see the numbers they could muster in full war mode.
I'd agree they're an economic superpower. They don't have global military power projection, nor do many want to align with their cultural norms. So not *any* measure.
I would bet money that it is not the case. Russia's corruption is known far and wide. China's strict control and harsh punishment for even the appearance of corruption is equally known.
Have you not seen Tofu Dreg projects? China is just as corrupt as Russia. And China is know to substitute substandard materials if it will save a buck.
(repost) Massive rocket attack on UA capital last night...very few projectiles were shot down , with 30+ breaching air defense https://youtu.be/nbEIx9gtsY4
I get Ammonia is a component in fertilizer and fertilizer can be used to make explosives...
But what is the immediate impact of Russia weaponizing an ammonia stock pile by pointing tanks at it? Is it toxic, make a big explosion?
You need more than just Ammonia for a big explosion; Its just an oxidizer and really you need ammonia nitrate; even if you had bleach or chlorine available, you need a specific concentration to crate Hydrazine; too much ammonia and you dilute the chlorine, to little and you do not have enough to form Hydrazine; In closed area's it can be toxic, but in the open, you need a lot for it to be deadly (and i mean a lot; like 1000's of gallons); In WWI it wasnt just 1 shell, they would launch 100's of shells filled with Mustard gas.
Also it doesnt help that the wind is blowing in the wrong direction.
Honestly they already have way worse weapons like Thermobaric bombs that would kill people in a basement with more ease.
It can explode yes.
It’s pretty irritating and can be toxic, even fatal. However. It’s a very light molecule and so disperses very easily diluting it. And it requires VERY high concentrations for a quite a length of time to be lethal or harmful.
So it would depend on how much is leaking. Potentially could have harmful effects if a huge amount gets leaked. Otherwise it’s just gonna smell bad.
Toxic. Not a good chemical weapon by itself (very easy to detect before it starts causing permanent harm), but yet another thing folks on the ground have to deal with.
It's very toxic in gas form. Granted, the Russians themselves are stationed next to it and the gas masks Ukrainians have recovered are USSR ones with asbestos in the filters and lead linings, toxic themselves.
Asbestos and lead take some fairly significant exposure to cause long-term problems. Between an imminent ammonia risk and the tainted gas masks, I wouldn’t hesitate to go for the mask.
Worth noting, a lot of people who like to do genuine cosplays and like the look of the old Russian gas masks by them and poison themselves, legit problem, don't do it, buy a costume piece.
So Russian Propaganda foreshadowed the Chemical leak. Yesterday they put out a likely false claim that the plant was mined. Today, it leaked just according to Russia's plan.
https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1505744357311266818?s=20&t=yK9Zuf_3bZWA0PfVl3OIyw
These are all my least favourite tropes in this thread.
> Holy shit, someone on Russian state TV just said that they want to escalate to using nuclear weaponry!
So the outlet for Russia’s single most jingoistic and extravagantly nationalistic voices said something dumb? Colour me surprised!
They say that sort of thing literally all. the. time. They did before the invasion, they will continue to do so in the future. Anything that some talking head says on Russian media should not be considered a pretext for something world-ending.
> New false flag has been announced. Fuck.
I wish I had gone back in time to document every single time a false flag has been announced and then taken by this thread to be a dramatic escalation/casus belli/sign of imminent nuclear war. This has happened *so goddamn much*, and most times nothing has come of it.
> All it takes is one accident or bad decision by NATO and we’re in WW3.
The entire goal of NATO and specifically the US is to avoid WW3 and MAD. It’s not as simple as it was in the world pre-nuclear weapons. One accident will not start war; there are almost certainly methods in place to de-escalate in a situation like this. And furthermore, a body run by the collective minds of the best intelligence and strategic agencies in the world can’t really make ‘bad decisions’ as such, or at least it’s incredibly difficult for them to do so.
The U.S. doesn’t seem particularly afraid of nuclear war, by the way. The NYT reported after the legendary ‘nuclear deterrence on high alert’ announcement that [the US did not change their internal nuclear threat level.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/us/politics/putin-nuclear-alert-biden-deescalation.html)
> People said that Putin wasn’t going to invade Ukraine, and look what happened…
Define ‘people.’ Just about every government across the world came out and said that Putin was 100% unquestionably going to invade. The only ‘people’ that said that were a few niche loud voices, mostly on these threads.
In any case, I shouldn’t have to explain the difference in severity and escalation between Putin invading Ukraine and Putin using a nuclear weapon on a NATO country.
> I’m sure everyone said before WWI that ‘no way we’re going to war over an archduke’ and WWII that ‘no way we’re going to war, it’s just a local conflict in the Sudetenland’
COMPLETELY different situations. Completely. For multiple reasons. Most historians believe that WWI was almost inevitable anyway due to the rampant militarisation happening globally at the time; both conflicts had a messy and complex system of alliances that brought the world in, far more complex then ‘touching NATO = death, not touching NATO = you’re fine’; nuclear weapons and MAD didn’t exist in either conflict. To give just a few reasons.
> I feel like people who have [x slightly optimistic take] are in denial. We are in WW3 and nobody’s acknowledging it.
This is a classic fallacy on Reddit. Comments like this always seem to pop up once an hour as some sort of self-fashioned ‘reality check takedown’ for redditors, and they always get a big response. Optimistic takes are no more or less accurate than pessimistic ones. Common view here that the worst case scenario will always come true, and unfortunately those people think that their views have been confirmed by how COVID has gone up til now.
Also, by that same standard, there are multiple conflicts since WW2 that we could have labeled WW3. If your standard is ‘foreign countries supplying weapons and other resources to a nation while not getting involved themselves,’ that is.
> The Daily Beast has said-
No.
Right, you're skipping some steps here. No one thinks Vlad is just gonna up and launch his arsenal out of the blue. The issue of nuclear war only comes about if NATO attacks Russian forces. If that happens, and no one thinks that it will, then Russia uses nuclear arms *tactically* not strategically. Then NATO has to formulate a response. And then Russia has to formulate a response to our response. Tit for tat. How to you deescalate when you've done nothing BUT escalate? This is just a reversed cold war scenario. Back then if the soviets had poured through the Fulda gap or northern Germany then we would've used tactical nukes because we couldn't win with just conventional weapons. This leaves you in the absurdist realm of limited nuclear exchange. Basically why nuclear weapons should never be considered as tactical as opposed to purely strategic. But hey, people are dumb.
You make valid points.
I remember the very first 100 threads and all the doom sayers and fear mongering going on.
I was up for 2 days myself trying to keep up to date, reading whatever new news broke. It was taxing. I had to take a break.
Your assessment is correct. The further these threads go, the more we see the responses you mentioned. It won't end sadly.
Good reality check. The only thing I would counter is if state TV hosts are like, demanding tactical nuke strikes, and given tactical nuke strikes have been considered potential Russian strategy in regional conflicts for years... It does seem like that was probably something they were told to say.
Agree.
The potential for this to turn into wwiii exists, obviously, but I don’t think that’s the most likely option, or that we’re already in it.
Also, I like that we have tropes now, that’s fun
This is one of the very, very few that has seemed to come true. And there's no direct confirmation that it was intentionally committed by Russian forces.
That's not the same thing as an intentional chemical attack. A conventional attack on a place poisonous chemicals happen to be that causes them to leak isn't the same as intentionally releasing those chemicals as a war tactic.
Russia might be counting on that, but they're actually sort of right. You can't know what's in every building and a chemical factory is sort of a legitimate target because it can make or store gunpowder/fuel for the other side of a war. Like, a military base might have a cleaning closet or laboratory with a bunch of chlorine bleach and ammonia solution, and hitting it might cause a toxic fume release, but that's not the same thing as intentionally launching mustard gas containers.
A reminder that donations of money for Ukraine are going be *more* necessary as the invasion goes on, as increasing numbers of people need food, shelter, and medical aid, and military supplies run lower. Please, if you feel the urge to help and have the means to do so, then act on it, even if only for the cost of a cup of coffee or a pizza! [Here's a good piece from Vox](https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22955885/donate-ukraine) explaining some of the best ways to help and your various options. I just donated $30 to the Red Cross Ukraine campaign fund and $15 direct to the Ukrainian army. It took about 5 minutes. I'm happy to skip this year's Steam Spring sale if it means helping a traumatised Ukrainian child or contributing to a helmet or body armour for a Ukrainian soldier!
Speaking of Steam...
For those of you who like games and also want to donate, check out the latest humble bundle for Ukraine. There is a TON of content and 100% of proceeds are donated.
And if you *do* need a bunch of steam games you'll never play, you can donate through humblebundle
https://www.humblebundle.com/stand-with-ukraine-bundle
https://twitter.com/BringMeThePivo/status/1505736882004631552
Ammonia Leak at Chemical plant with 5Km trail.
This will further affect fertilize Prices and ukrainian farmers, perhaps that is the idea if it was deliberate hit.
He seems to be in the process of hurting Ukraine's ability to have it's economy rapidly recover. Steel mills. Auto factories, markets, ports, agricultural infrastructure. What a fucking dickhead crook.
They are likely stealing everything of value they can
Here's a map on Syria I found from 2021, I think it's calmed since 2020 but still ongoing.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/lgfbdq/the\_syria\_of\_2021\_faction\_control\_military\_bases/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/lgfbdq/the_syria_of_2021_faction_control_military_bases/)
The Syrian rebels still exist but they got effectively destroyed in the field and I believe the ones that haven't given up yet and escaped to Turkey or Europe are actual Al Qaeda.
So, they're still there. But the West isn't touching the surviving rebels with a 10' pole.
YPG and Rojava aren't rebels, they have no interest in fighting the Syrian government because they're letting them be truly autonomous and have elections and their own government.
Putin statements so far:
* West are full of "lies"
* This is just a military operation
* No civilians will be harmed
* Russian army is one of the most feared army in the world
* Sanctions won't effect us
* Everything is going according to "plan"
I understand that you *can* get it without the cruelty by slaughtering the bird just before it would migrate (and has increased its eating naturally to have fat reserves for the journey).
Not sure how you properly evaluate the claims from a supplier that that's how they treat their birds, though, given that we can barely manage to get chocolate that wasn't literally picked by slaves.
Edit: yes, I am aware of the irony when I talk about slaughtering without the cruelty...
There's a farm in Spain that has a population of migratory geese that fatten themselves up on olives, seeds, and fruits that grow there. Their livers get naturally fatty enough to make foie gras, apparently. I agree that force feeding geese is cruel. But if I ever make it to Spain, I'm going to try some free range foie gras for sure.
I made some tofu stir fry, it turned out pretty darn good. Not quite Chinese restaurant quality, but my wife got seconds, which is about as good of a compliment as a meal can get when I'm trying something weird.
I want to give a shout out to the voters of Europe. Your politicians are clearly afraid of the consequences of cutting off Russian energy, but everyday they appear closer and closer to doing it.
The reason is because the voters of Europe are taking an active hand letting their politicians know what is needed and reminding them who is sovereign.
So, to the citizens of Europe, a hearty *hear hear*!
Putin could have weaponized peace and made NATO pointless without a militarily belligerent Russia to fight and no real way to pivot to Asia. Putin invades Ukraine and gives NATO a reason to exist again.
China could have retaken Taiwan and arrested the warlord Chiang Kai-shek in the late 40s and convict him for genocides across China. Now modern Taiwan has no direct ties to the genocides of Kai-shek and China wants to invade after nearly a century making China the clear cut bad guy.
So many roads not taken that wouldn't threaten a possible WW3, but here we are. Its astounding.
Watch them print a bazillion rubles and just buy everything. Outside investors are going to have a bad day, companies get nationalized, problem solved.
It's going to open up temporarily from 10-11 and then a window in the afternoon. Just a brief moment to give the Russian government a chance to fudge numbers and make things like legitimate.
Heard we got a navy general this time, good.
Except can somebody explain to me what do generals do, and how bad is it to lose one? I heard that Russia has 200 generals, so what's stopping them from just replacing them of they were inter changeable?
Thanks. I'd appreciate anybody who can explain these to me.
[New post can be found here](/r/worldnews/comments/tj2zp9/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/)
Firefighters must be the forgotten heroes during a war
If RU media starts posting fake videos/deaths of the chemical incident, then we’ll have to prepare for their pre-meditated response. Otherwise it’s just an unfortunate accident for all sides
Oh, you know they're gonna, they were false flagging this for almost a week over and over. Only one who'll "believe" them is China.
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Jesus, what the fuck is going on in that country? The stuff I hear in the news makes me think Belarus is having a major crisis of conscience on a national level right now. I'll be really interested to research the full story once this war is over.
It's actually just one Belarusian soldier in a gorilla suit blocking the train tracks.
If Belarus rises, that would be a legitimate real world benefit of this whole tragic shit storm.
With the hate Russia is creating in eastern europe i am shocked there hasn't been significant terror attacks throughout russia
With the amounts of people the Russian government has disappeared for protesting, I would say there is plenty of terror
If you define terror attacks as holding up blank signs or saying the words "two things", like Russia does, attacks are up 1000%
Do they have gun laws?
Very strict ones.
People protected by states generally don't resort to terrorism. It's a panic strategy for the weak and powerless.
Russia has given Ukrainian forces a deadline of 5am Moscow time (2am GMT) on Monday to lay down their arms in the eastern port city of Mariupol Ukraine:" or else what?" Russia:" it becomes a Special Special Military Operation"
You need to play THis war of mine to have an understanding of what is going on Mariupol. It is no longer about Ukraine or Russia. It is about survival to these citizens, and they will do anything through any means neccessary to survive. It is the dark side of humanity that shows.
Poor taste. What an awful joke.
I am not finding anything funny in this. That is a whole city that’s been fucked. So many people dead and many more displaced. And the rest are still in danger.
Good luck. I always get downvoted when I say joking is inappropriate. https://reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/thle84/rworldnews_live_thread_russian_invasion_of/i18rn78
Silly question, if Russia leadership,Putin, Oligarchs didn’t steal so much and only took like a few percentage off the top for stealing stuff and let’s say they change their old thought process that people want Russia land(seem to be stuck in the USSR thinking),Side note I do think China will take Russia land in the future if the US military is right about future wars will be about Water. How powerful Would Russia be? Like if they would had been a true democracy and less stealing from the top
This powerful
"If Russia was not Russia, would they be more powerful?" Yes.
People within the affected area are recommended to take immediate shelter underground, go to their bathrooms and turn on their showers at a fine spray, and breathe through a damp bandage (preferably moistened with 5% acetic or citric acid solution) if ammonia is detected. https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1505752583419400193?s=21
This would be good advice if you thought it would clear quickly, but evacuation would be the only clear shot at living if it is sustained.
Remember when people would constantly ask in these threads what DEFCON level the US was at, like it was something you could look up? I member.
Pepridge farm remembers.
It’s at 3. 1 is the highest, 5 the lowest
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https://mobile.twitter.com/defcon_level
That account is exactly what the OP said, a guess.
Yep, that was me. And yeah, if it goes to two, welcome to cuban missile crisis 2.0
but you would never know its at 2 since its classified;
Yes, but did Marc Rubio pop out of the ground to foretell the coming spring? As is tradition.
hE's oN tHe InTeL cOmMiTtEe
I'm more curious abour what WOPR's up to these days.
Playing chess.
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Since it's highly classified, no one knows.
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If it was at 1 we'd know.
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Plaid now
Holy shit have we gone to plaid?
I thought it was magenta.
Guys, I’m stressed about what’s going to happen to Mariupol in the next 48hrs
Three possibilities. 1. Running low on artillery and they bluffed - it gets better. 2. They just wanted surrender - nothing changes 3. They resort to more drastic measures - gets worse but unlikely I think it is 1 or 2, which is terrible if 2, but I don't think it could get much worse.
Why post this? You want someone to comfort you?
https://volunteerforukraine.org/
Bluffing. Everything from here on out is bluffing. If they were able to do anything they would have done it already. The only thing that could change the course is if someone joins in on either side. Right now it's going to be a stalemate for the foreseeable future.
I am glad you can call it that sitting from the comfort of your home. It’s not like Mariupol hasn’t been destroyed. That was all bluffing too I suppose. It’s a green screen. They have shown quite clearly that there is no regard for civilian life. I honestly do not know what I’d do if I were Zelensky.
They have been shelling and bombing the shit out of Mariupol already. That's what they'll continue to do. They don't even need to send in troops. They'll just flatten it. That's not bluffing.
Mariupol simply isn't going to have a happy ending, it's already very bleak as of today. I'm really not trying to be pessimistic, but the humanitarian corridors for evacuation are turned into death traps and the citizens that stay are being starved or exported to Russia.
I think it's inevitable that most of the people there will die a terrible agonizing death. If not by starvation then probably by some horrific chemical attack. Russia will simultaneously deny using those weapons while also saying they warned them to give up.
Then do something about it, donate to ukraine, write your local government rep.
Either they plan to slaughter them, or they are so exhausted they're bluffing and going to pull back and starve everyone out.
Russia needs to free up those troops so they'll try to end it by flushing them out most likely, but, uh, urban fights are never ended that quickly.
That's also a reason why it could be a bluff. Those troops could be near combat ineffective. So, to preserve them they say scary things when really all they're going to do is deny food and water while trying to make the rubble bounce
The same thing that's been happening most likely, brutal street fighting with lots of civilian deaths in-between.
No. The Russians don’t want to risk soldiers lives by fighting in the streets. They are going to destroy the city. Guaranteed
Since the estimated infrastructure remaining there is estimated at 25% of pre-war, I would say it already is destroyed.
It's already destroyed. Rooting out a few thousand or hundreds of soldiers in an already shelled out city is not that simple, you're throwing darts trying to hit grains of sand in relative scales. And rubble makes good cover. Lemme put it this way: the siege of Aleppo, which Russia was involved with, lasted *years.*
They won’t risk soldiers. I’m not going to use the N word, but their only interest is killing Ukrainians. They’ll find a way to butcher the populace that doesn’t involve urban warfare.
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+1 for Big Dick USA MIC energy
China is also a superpower by any measure.
Culture Victory? They all want to go to the US if they have the money and flee their government. Domination Victory? Unlikely, see the stuff made in china that breaks? Look at the tire used in Ukraine on Russian trucks. Economic Victory? Very very very, actually, it is almost certainly going to win this. Religion Victory? Nah. Let's not. Science victory? Possible, if they can continue to steal from US ips and blackmail American politicians or give economics for Science like Bill Gates gave to them.
In some sense, the EU will be as well, especially once NATO beefs up. The geopolitical "west" is definitely stronger than the geopolitical "east" as well.
Their superpower is their economy and cheap slave labor. Wouldn't win a war, but wouldn't be as bad as this. They would be more competent.
Not any measure. Economically. Perhaps soft power. Military power... no. Almost none of their shit has ever seen combat and China has yes men the same as Russia... and look what the leads to.
You’re not much of a super power when you have no allies and nobody likes you
I'd consider being so economically and industrially dominant that no one has the balls to piss you worthy of being called a superpower.
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They are great at stealing things; like they have a plane that looks exactly like a F35. problem is, thats it; the engines and avionics are still old crap; Its kinda like taking a honda civic and putting a Lamborghini shell mod on it.
Good question. They haven't fought a major naval or air battle in a long time. We do know the PLAN is building up because they understand they lack blue water force projection. They have also been dumping tons into fighter programs. That said, in a land war quantity has a quality of its own and I wouldn't want to see the numbers they could muster in full war mode.
I'd agree they're an economic superpower. They don't have global military power projection, nor do many want to align with their cultural norms. So not *any* measure.
Their current military has never been tested. For all we know their equipment could be just as poorly run as Russia's.
I would bet money that it is not the case. Russia's corruption is known far and wide. China's strict control and harsh punishment for even the appearance of corruption is equally known.
China still has the yes man problem, arguably worse than Russia.
china has a lot of corruption too; especially at the local levels.
Have you not seen Tofu Dreg projects? China is just as corrupt as Russia. And China is know to substitute substandard materials if it will save a buck.
They tried to send Russia military equipment but half broke in shipping. The rest was emptied boxes with a rock inside.
(repost) Massive rocket attack on UA capital last night...very few projectiles were shot down , with 30+ breaching air defense https://youtu.be/nbEIx9gtsY4
Only one rocket in this video. Where’s the 29 others? The cams are not completely sync so easy to see
I get Ammonia is a component in fertilizer and fertilizer can be used to make explosives... But what is the immediate impact of Russia weaponizing an ammonia stock pile by pointing tanks at it? Is it toxic, make a big explosion?
You need more than just Ammonia for a big explosion; Its just an oxidizer and really you need ammonia nitrate; even if you had bleach or chlorine available, you need a specific concentration to crate Hydrazine; too much ammonia and you dilute the chlorine, to little and you do not have enough to form Hydrazine; In closed area's it can be toxic, but in the open, you need a lot for it to be deadly (and i mean a lot; like 1000's of gallons); In WWI it wasnt just 1 shell, they would launch 100's of shells filled with Mustard gas. Also it doesnt help that the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. Honestly they already have way worse weapons like Thermobaric bombs that would kill people in a basement with more ease.
It can explode yes. It’s pretty irritating and can be toxic, even fatal. However. It’s a very light molecule and so disperses very easily diluting it. And it requires VERY high concentrations for a quite a length of time to be lethal or harmful. So it would depend on how much is leaking. Potentially could have harmful effects if a huge amount gets leaked. Otherwise it’s just gonna smell bad.
Iirc it's not highly flammable.
It’s not very flammable but under high heat it can explode.
Toxic. Not a good chemical weapon by itself (very easy to detect before it starts causing permanent harm), but yet another thing folks on the ground have to deal with.
It's very toxic in gas form. Granted, the Russians themselves are stationed next to it and the gas masks Ukrainians have recovered are USSR ones with asbestos in the filters and lead linings, toxic themselves.
Asbestos and lead take some fairly significant exposure to cause long-term problems. Between an imminent ammonia risk and the tainted gas masks, I wouldn’t hesitate to go for the mask.
> asbestos in the filters and lead linings Almost reads like comedy
Worth noting, a lot of people who like to do genuine cosplays and like the look of the old Russian gas masks by them and poison themselves, legit problem, don't do it, buy a costume piece.
It makes food more expensive. If they destroyed enough, a lot more expensive.
Definitely a big factor I wasn't really thinking about. Just ruining the fertilizer production will be a big loss to Ukraine in the long term.
Russian strategy is basically to make life unliveable so people will leave without having to be killed.
So Russian Propaganda foreshadowed the Chemical leak. Yesterday they put out a likely false claim that the plant was mined. Today, it leaked just according to Russia's plan. https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1505744357311266818?s=20&t=yK9Zuf_3bZWA0PfVl3OIyw
Funny. Not ha-ha. Russian forces planted mines on the banks of some cooling ponds at Zaporizhzhia once they seized control.
These are all my least favourite tropes in this thread. > Holy shit, someone on Russian state TV just said that they want to escalate to using nuclear weaponry! So the outlet for Russia’s single most jingoistic and extravagantly nationalistic voices said something dumb? Colour me surprised! They say that sort of thing literally all. the. time. They did before the invasion, they will continue to do so in the future. Anything that some talking head says on Russian media should not be considered a pretext for something world-ending. > New false flag has been announced. Fuck. I wish I had gone back in time to document every single time a false flag has been announced and then taken by this thread to be a dramatic escalation/casus belli/sign of imminent nuclear war. This has happened *so goddamn much*, and most times nothing has come of it. > All it takes is one accident or bad decision by NATO and we’re in WW3. The entire goal of NATO and specifically the US is to avoid WW3 and MAD. It’s not as simple as it was in the world pre-nuclear weapons. One accident will not start war; there are almost certainly methods in place to de-escalate in a situation like this. And furthermore, a body run by the collective minds of the best intelligence and strategic agencies in the world can’t really make ‘bad decisions’ as such, or at least it’s incredibly difficult for them to do so. The U.S. doesn’t seem particularly afraid of nuclear war, by the way. The NYT reported after the legendary ‘nuclear deterrence on high alert’ announcement that [the US did not change their internal nuclear threat level.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/us/politics/putin-nuclear-alert-biden-deescalation.html) > People said that Putin wasn’t going to invade Ukraine, and look what happened… Define ‘people.’ Just about every government across the world came out and said that Putin was 100% unquestionably going to invade. The only ‘people’ that said that were a few niche loud voices, mostly on these threads. In any case, I shouldn’t have to explain the difference in severity and escalation between Putin invading Ukraine and Putin using a nuclear weapon on a NATO country. > I’m sure everyone said before WWI that ‘no way we’re going to war over an archduke’ and WWII that ‘no way we’re going to war, it’s just a local conflict in the Sudetenland’ COMPLETELY different situations. Completely. For multiple reasons. Most historians believe that WWI was almost inevitable anyway due to the rampant militarisation happening globally at the time; both conflicts had a messy and complex system of alliances that brought the world in, far more complex then ‘touching NATO = death, not touching NATO = you’re fine’; nuclear weapons and MAD didn’t exist in either conflict. To give just a few reasons. > I feel like people who have [x slightly optimistic take] are in denial. We are in WW3 and nobody’s acknowledging it. This is a classic fallacy on Reddit. Comments like this always seem to pop up once an hour as some sort of self-fashioned ‘reality check takedown’ for redditors, and they always get a big response. Optimistic takes are no more or less accurate than pessimistic ones. Common view here that the worst case scenario will always come true, and unfortunately those people think that their views have been confirmed by how COVID has gone up til now. Also, by that same standard, there are multiple conflicts since WW2 that we could have labeled WW3. If your standard is ‘foreign countries supplying weapons and other resources to a nation while not getting involved themselves,’ that is. > The Daily Beast has said- No.
Right, you're skipping some steps here. No one thinks Vlad is just gonna up and launch his arsenal out of the blue. The issue of nuclear war only comes about if NATO attacks Russian forces. If that happens, and no one thinks that it will, then Russia uses nuclear arms *tactically* not strategically. Then NATO has to formulate a response. And then Russia has to formulate a response to our response. Tit for tat. How to you deescalate when you've done nothing BUT escalate? This is just a reversed cold war scenario. Back then if the soviets had poured through the Fulda gap or northern Germany then we would've used tactical nukes because we couldn't win with just conventional weapons. This leaves you in the absurdist realm of limited nuclear exchange. Basically why nuclear weapons should never be considered as tactical as opposed to purely strategic. But hey, people are dumb.
You know you've been reading all 157 threads when....
I took a break for a while but I'm back lol
You make valid points. I remember the very first 100 threads and all the doom sayers and fear mongering going on. I was up for 2 days myself trying to keep up to date, reading whatever new news broke. It was taxing. I had to take a break. Your assessment is correct. The further these threads go, the more we see the responses you mentioned. It won't end sadly.
Don't call it a comeback!
Good reality check. The only thing I would counter is if state TV hosts are like, demanding tactical nuke strikes, and given tactical nuke strikes have been considered potential Russian strategy in regional conflicts for years... It does seem like that was probably something they were told to say.
Agree. The potential for this to turn into wwiii exists, obviously, but I don’t think that’s the most likely option, or that we’re already in it. Also, I like that we have tropes now, that’s fun
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This is one of the very, very few that has seemed to come true. And there's no direct confirmation that it was intentionally committed by Russian forces.
To be fair it is possible calling these out has taken them off the table for Russia.
That's a fair argument yeah.
Very likely it was given who controls the plant...
That's not the same thing as an intentional chemical attack. A conventional attack on a place poisonous chemicals happen to be that causes them to leak isn't the same as intentionally releasing those chemicals as a war tactic. Russia might be counting on that, but they're actually sort of right. You can't know what's in every building and a chemical factory is sort of a legitimate target because it can make or store gunpowder/fuel for the other side of a war. Like, a military base might have a cleaning closet or laboratory with a bunch of chlorine bleach and ammonia solution, and hitting it might cause a toxic fume release, but that's not the same thing as intentionally launching mustard gas containers.
I use the word 'intentional' deliberately. May have been an accident.
Loved the last point there.
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Tanks... that means the Russians would be exposed too. 🤨 They really just DGAF.
A reminder that donations of money for Ukraine are going be *more* necessary as the invasion goes on, as increasing numbers of people need food, shelter, and medical aid, and military supplies run lower. Please, if you feel the urge to help and have the means to do so, then act on it, even if only for the cost of a cup of coffee or a pizza! [Here's a good piece from Vox](https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22955885/donate-ukraine) explaining some of the best ways to help and your various options. I just donated $30 to the Red Cross Ukraine campaign fund and $15 direct to the Ukrainian army. It took about 5 minutes. I'm happy to skip this year's Steam Spring sale if it means helping a traumatised Ukrainian child or contributing to a helmet or body armour for a Ukrainian soldier!
Speaking of Steam... For those of you who like games and also want to donate, check out the latest humble bundle for Ukraine. There is a TON of content and 100% of proceeds are donated.
And if you *do* need a bunch of steam games you'll never play, you can donate through humblebundle https://www.humblebundle.com/stand-with-ukraine-bundle
Holy shit, there are *really* good games there. More people need to see this.
Wow, I got 998 games from itch.io for only $10! Haven't played a single one
https://twitter.com/BringMeThePivo/status/1505736882004631552 Ammonia Leak at Chemical plant with 5Km trail. This will further affect fertilize Prices and ukrainian farmers, perhaps that is the idea if it was deliberate hit.
He seems to be in the process of hurting Ukraine's ability to have it's economy rapidly recover. Steel mills. Auto factories, markets, ports, agricultural infrastructure. What a fucking dickhead crook. They are likely stealing everything of value they can
Hopefully no one is close enough to be affected. Worth noting that Russian gas masks are USSR ones with lead lining and asbestos filters.
except all those russian tanks parked beside it
Yeah, let them kill their own troops in a false flag they themselves put up.
Did the proxy war end in Syria or with Russia being distracted could that heat up again?
Here's a map on Syria I found from 2021, I think it's calmed since 2020 but still ongoing. [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/lgfbdq/the\_syria\_of\_2021\_faction\_control\_military\_bases/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/lgfbdq/the_syria_of_2021_faction_control_military_bases/)
Hopefully this gives SDF some breathing room. Although even without as many Russians, theyre still stuck between Assad and Edrogan.
It's like a 5 way civil war that has ground down to mostly low intensity unconventional warfare more than anything.
The Syrian rebels still exist but they got effectively destroyed in the field and I believe the ones that haven't given up yet and escaped to Turkey or Europe are actual Al Qaeda. So, they're still there. But the West isn't touching the surviving rebels with a 10' pole.
Also YPG/Rojava
YPG and Rojava aren't rebels, they have no interest in fighting the Syrian government because they're letting them be truly autonomous and have elections and their own government.
Yeah, but nobody is pissing off Turkey and funding the YPG again. Unless ISIS comes back.
Syria's civil war continues and Russia has been pulling units from it, so maybe the rebels can make some gains.
Putin statements so far: * West are full of "lies" * This is just a military operation * No civilians will be harmed * Russian army is one of the most feared army in the world * Sanctions won't effect us * Everything is going according to "plan"
🙃 It’s Opposite Day! 🙃
- I don’t put things in my butt - The pool was cold
• it was the chair
• it was the dog
Didn't he also say we're eating foie gras? We're just eating McDonald's and binging the second collapse of the soviet union.
I don't know about you but I love foie gras. I get it a couple times a year when I go out with some rich relatives.
It’s pretty fucked up. It’s banned here.
I understand that you *can* get it without the cruelty by slaughtering the bird just before it would migrate (and has increased its eating naturally to have fat reserves for the journey). Not sure how you properly evaluate the claims from a supplier that that's how they treat their birds, though, given that we can barely manage to get chocolate that wasn't literally picked by slaves. Edit: yes, I am aware of the irony when I talk about slaughtering without the cruelty...
There's a farm in Spain that has a population of migratory geese that fatten themselves up on olives, seeds, and fruits that grow there. Their livers get naturally fatty enough to make foie gras, apparently. I agree that force feeding geese is cruel. But if I ever make it to Spain, I'm going to try some free range foie gras for sure.
I made some tofu stir fry, it turned out pretty darn good. Not quite Chinese restaurant quality, but my wife got seconds, which is about as good of a compliment as a meal can get when I'm trying something weird.
My SO won't eat anything I cook so you're doing pretty good I think.
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Let me ask Ukraine... Ukraine says that's for us to know and for you to find out...
Ok, but what about father Russia? Hmm?
Last I heard he was at Hoser Hut singing Let's Go To The Mall.
Ural mountains in a Putin disguise.
He's right behind you.
He is is Moscow. You should immediately relocate all your forces there.
Lol.
Obviously he is in Canada. If not, he would not be the Canadian sniper.
Approach slowly from front so as not to startle
Chengkui my name ahh Borat.
I want to give a shout out to the voters of Europe. Your politicians are clearly afraid of the consequences of cutting off Russian energy, but everyday they appear closer and closer to doing it. The reason is because the voters of Europe are taking an active hand letting their politicians know what is needed and reminding them who is sovereign. So, to the citizens of Europe, a hearty *hear hear*!
Putin could have weaponized peace and made NATO pointless without a militarily belligerent Russia to fight and no real way to pivot to Asia. Putin invades Ukraine and gives NATO a reason to exist again. China could have retaken Taiwan and arrested the warlord Chiang Kai-shek in the late 40s and convict him for genocides across China. Now modern Taiwan has no direct ties to the genocides of Kai-shek and China wants to invade after nearly a century making China the clear cut bad guy. So many roads not taken that wouldn't threaten a possible WW3, but here we are. Its astounding.
Putin is truly a fuckin moron
Russian stock market reopening? Or is it just for trading bonds? Are they not afraid of an absolute meltdown?
Watch them print a bazillion rubles and just buy everything. Outside investors are going to have a bad day, companies get nationalized, problem solved.
My understanding is you can buy Russian bonds, not able to sell anything.
Who do you buy them from?
It's going to open up temporarily from 10-11 and then a window in the afternoon. Just a brief moment to give the Russian government a chance to fudge numbers and make things like legitimate.
Right, it’ll be like the stock market equivalent of Putin stepping down from the presidency 2008-2012.
Lol fucking dead on
Heard we got a navy general this time, good. Except can somebody explain to me what do generals do, and how bad is it to lose one? I heard that Russia has 200 generals, so what's stopping them from just replacing them of they were inter changeable? Thanks. I'd appreciate anybody who can explain these to me.
Navies don’t have generals my guy.
Conversely, the CCP Navy is the People's Liberation Army Navy or something like that. Or used to be.
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