I think every time a fascist piece of **** like Putin blows up one of his foot soldiers in a ditch in the middle of nowhere it's one less Alex Pretti or Renee Good who will be murdered by them. Cause for celebration? Call it whatever, to some degree everybody, even the dopes left to rot in the fields of Ukraine or the Guardsman stuck in 100 degree heat guarding Trump's reflecting pool slime - is a victim of the global fascist oligarch **** stains that @Space Ghost and @glynch fervently support and defend. One can argue their individual culpability separately, but each Ukrainian FPV drone strike makes the international fascist movement - that of Trump,Vance, Putin, Musk, Thiel, Farage, Milei, Netanyahu - that much weaker. And that is a good thing for the planet
I can't express how STUPID of a take this is, to quote you. Putin invaded Ukraine in order to TAKE the country. That's concept is obviously over your head. As for Russia being an "immoral country," no, the country isn't immoral, the Putin regime that governs it is. You clearly hate nuance. Russia's prisons and forced labor camps are filled with tens of thousands of those who dared to criticize Putin. That you seriously claim that Ukraine should have "negotiated more with Russia to prevent the war in the first place" is a joke. The only negotiation Putin would have accepted before he sent his military to invade democratic Ukraine is the surrender of that country. As far as "the West fighting this proxy war" is concerned, we aren't. The people of Ukraine are, who you clearly couldn't care less about. NATO, the EU, and occasionally the trump regime in Washington (depending on how trump is feeling at 3am on any given night) are helping Ukraine by giving them arms, intelligence, and money. The Ukrainian people are doing the fighting, fool.
I am well aware Putin invaded to take the country. Why else would he invade? Im so confused. He invaded, because in his opinion, Kiev became too anti-Russian/pro-west. Claiming a country is immoral is not nuanced. Its very specific. No need to lash out and get angry when the message is being poorly expressed. That is exactly how the Holocaust happened. No **** sherlock. I would fully expect regimes that opposed the Russia Federation will face some repercussion if they didn't leave. But to you, a couple million lives and obliterating a country is worth it. Let me say it again - I DONT CARE if Ukraine is under partial or full control of Russia. Over half a million males fled at the beginning of the invasion. Clearly they valued their own lives over fighting your fantasy war. Interesting how you tell me I don't care about them when I have routinely stated this is senseless deaths. You're the war monger who is happily rejoicing at russian deaths, despite the mass carnage to the Ukrainian people. You still live in this fantasy world in the 60's of Russia being a boogie man ready to take over the world. Russia is a shell of its former self, relatively speaking to modern times. What you fail to understand is that ostracizing Russia from the global markets only pushes them to more and more extreme behavior. All of you boomers and your stupid ego's just need to go away. It is the boomers who are ruining the world and holding the rest of us back. Its all the boomers who hold the wealth and force the earlier generations to live in squalor. The worst people in government are boomers: Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Khamenei (these four alone are the worst antagonizers ) McConnell, Sanders, Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Biden, Warren. The list goes on. Just retire already and stop telling everyone else how the world should be ran. Fossils should be in museums, not running the government.
"Claiming a country is immoral is not nuanced. Its very specific. No need to lash out and get angry when the message is being poorly expressed. That is exactly how the Holocaust happened." You will have to explain the comment quoted above and what the Holocaust has to do with Ukraine and Putin's desire to possess the country. He has said before that the fall of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe. The former KGB colonel dreams of rebuilding the "empire" of the Soviet Union, as well as reclaiming eastern Europe as a sphere of influence guaranteed by the Russian military. He clearly sees taking Ukraine as a major step in doing just that, in my opinion. That you "DONT CARE if Ukraine is under partial or full control of Russia" says a great deal about you, none of it good. This isn't a "fantasy war." It is far too real. "What you fail to understand is that ostracizing Russia from the global markets only pushes them to more and more extreme behavior. All of you boomers and your stupid ego's just need to go away. It is the boomers who are ruining the world and holding the rest of us back. Its all the boomers who hold the wealth and force the earlier generations to live in squalor. The worst people in government are boomers: Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Khamenei (these four alone are the worst antagonizers ) McConnell, Sanders, Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Biden, Warren. The list goes on. Just retire already and stop telling everyone else how the world should be ran." What a strange paragraph. Do you live in squalor? I very much doubt it! Do you seriously believe, "It is the boomers who are ruining the world and holding the rest of us back. Its all the boomers who hold the wealth and force the earlier generations to live in squalor." Talk about paranoia! You are apparently possessed by it. So is Vladimir Putin. "Ostracizing Russia from the global markets only pushes them to more and more extreme behavior." Really? Russia began getting ostracized when Putin decided to seize Crimea, taking an important province of Ukraine and declaring it a part of Russia. Former President Obama reacted far too meekly when that happened, which, in my opinion, helped to convince Putin that he could get away with taking the entire country of Ukraine, the largest country within Europe. He thought his huge military could manage it in a few days. Years later he is still trying to take it, and failing. The European Union, NATO, and the United States (when trump feels like it, which changes from day to day) have been giving Ukraine assistance, including arms and ammunition. All the military assistance in the world wouldn't prevent Putin's success if the people of Ukraine weren't determined to defeat Russia. As it stands now, Russia finds itself in a quagmire and after 4-plus years, actually losing ground. There are those who believe Putin is losing his war. You might consider caring more for Ukraine and its independence than you seem to care for Vladimir Putin. With all due respect. Certainly, I agree that you are confused. Very confused. As for retiring? I've been retired for years. Both of my children are college graduates and have excellent careers, all without a bit of debt hanging over their heads. Perhaps sessions with a psychologist could be of some help to you? If your "squalor" would allow it, of course. If not, you might consider looking into what is available for those who are financially disadvantaged (not that I believe for a second that you are). Confusion is not something to toy with, in my opinion.
question: Do you believe the world would be a better place if everyone elected to government and over the age of 69 resigned voluntarily? Just think - No Trump. No Putin. No Netanyahu. No Mitch McConnel. noKhamenei
Maybe the answer is that we need more women leaders. Most of the violence and wars are started by leaders who are men. It's like they need to show who has the biggest balls, and how great they are at blowing up those who they don't like or agree with. The older they get, the angrier and worse they get too. They get to a point that they try to stay in power by any means.
"I may look old, but I am a spry 56 year old Supreme Bear" - New Ayatollah, if he is still alive I think we are too optimistic about the reason why the world is a hellscape is just because it's old men ruling. World War I was waged when we had 40 and 50 year olds running the world.
Yes, Russia Is Losing the War in Ukraine - by Cathy Young FROM LATE 2023 UNTIL LATE 2025, I got a jittery feeling every time I pushed back against the prevailing narrative of Ukraine’s inevitable defeat. That line was quite common in mainstream punditry, but most assiduously promoted by Donald Trump and his worshipers, who assured us that Ukraine doesn’t “have any cards” and in any case Russia always wins its wars. What if I was just engaging in wishful thinking and cherry-picking the facts to fit my own preferred narrative of Ukrainian resilience? Well, here we are in the spring of 2026, and no one (except Vladimir Putin, still trapped in a news bubble of his own making) is talking about Ukrainian defeat anymore. We’re seeing more and more headlines like “How Ukraine Turned the Tide Against Russia” and “Shifting Momentum in the Russia-Ukraine War.” Ukraine is even having remarkable successes in operations that could set the stage for the recapture of Crimea, which even most Ukraine sympathizers, myself included, only recently regarded as an impossible fantasy. In recent weeks, the Russian “land bridge” to Crimea—including the 300-mile-long “Novorossiya” highway—has become what observers have called a “deathtrap” for trucks carrying essential deliveries. In May alone, 125 trucks have been incinerated, mostly with cutting-edge drones like the artificial intelligence-assisted Hornet. (In addition to striking at vehicles, the drones have also been mining the highway from the air.) While traffic still goes through, the Ukrainians are likely hoping that the “highway to hell” becomes dangerous enough that truckers will refuse to undertake such transport. The effect is not only to impose a partial blockade on Crimea itself, causing severe shortages of gasoline and other essential goods on the occupied peninsula (and threatening to kill the upcoming tourist season); it is also to choke off a vital supply route for Russian troops in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has announced a “‘logistics lockdown’ for the Russian army.” Drone warfare also includes regular and devastating strikes at oil refineries and other military-related infrastructure, often deep inside Russia—what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has wryly called “long-range sanctions” against Russia’s energy sector. But that’s not the only area where Ukraine is reversing the narrative of defeat. Expatriate Russian political scientist Vladimir Pastukhov, an honorary professor at University College London, noted in a YouTube interview that since late 2024, the Russian army had been very advancing very slowly and at tremendous human cost, but still gaining ground—“perhaps three feet a day, but steadily and along nearly the entire line of contact.” For the last three months or so, this has not been the case. Russian troops are still attacking, but generally failing to make any gains, and the Ukrainian counteroffensive is succeeding in recapturing more territory. Virtually everyone now acknowledges that the Russian ground offensive in Ukraine is stalled. A notable exception, of course, is Putin, who asserted only last week that “this situation” (a delicate euphemism for the war) is “nearing its conclusion” and then explained that his claim was based on “an analysis of what is happening on the battlefield”: “Our troops are advancing in every direction. Everyone can see it, every blessed day.” Even many of Russia’s hawkish “milbloggers” reacted with extreme skepticism. Expatriate Russian journalist and YouTuber Michael Nacke says that there is now “a whole constellation of fairly popular [pro-war bloggers] who explain at some length why Russia isn’t winning, no matter what Putin may say.” Putin, in fact, may be genuinely deluded. The Institute for the Study of War suggests, on the basis of leaked documents from the Russian Ministry of Defense, that his optimism likely stems from “a false perception of the Russian military’s successes in Ukraine based on heavily exaggerated maps from the Russian high military command.” It’s Potemkin villages all over again. UKRAINE’S ABILITY TO REGAIN THE MOMENTUM has been especially impressive given the extremely complicated environment in which it has had to operate since January 2025—namely, the extremely tenuous state of its partnership with the United States, including interruptions in arms deliveries and even in vital intelligence-sharing. The Trump administration’s dubious “peacemaking” amounted to de facto pressure on Ukraine to acquiesce to a bad deal that would have allowed Russia to keep the territories it had unlawfully seized. In large part, Ukrainian success has been due to its cutting-edge drone program—and the incredible ingenuity, creativity, and entrepreneurship that have made it a leader in the field. (Corruption in Ukraine is unquestionably a real problem, but the fact remains that it’s Russia’s drone program that has been plagued and set back by cronyism and corruption.) Ukraine’s superior flexibility may also account for its recent successes in seizing the initiative on the ground: British warfare researcher Jack Watling credits reforms in the Ukrainian military that have allowed more troop rotation and improved the quality of basic training. Meanwhile, Russia continues to struggle with manpower problems: According to recent Western intelligence reports, it is now losing more people than it’s able to recruit, despite major carrot-and-stick incentives. (Among the carrots: Putin has just signed a law offering new recruits and their spouses up to 10 million rubles, or $140,000, in debt forgiveness. Among the sticks: Conscripts are routinely pressured into “volunteering” to fight in Ukraine as contract soldiers.) The prospect of mobilization, which caused major discontent—and a wave of emigration—when it was tried in 2022 looms again. And Bloomberg reports that Russian finance officials are telling Putin the war has become economically unsustainable. Ukraine supporters, including Pastukhov and Watling, caution about overconfidence and premature optimism. The fortunes of war could change again, especially if Russia manages to close the drone gap and/or get better at intercepting Ukrainian drones. (Some Ukrainian commanders, and Western experts, believe that Ukraine now has a unique but relatively short window—perhaps six months—to achieve a genuine and lasting breakthrough.) Russia’s losses are also likely to make the Kremlin more determined to try to bring Kyiv to its knees by raining terror on Ukrainian urban centers—as Russian forces did in the early morning hours on Tuesday, unleashing 73 ballistic missiles and 656 drones on Kyiv, Kharkiv, and several other cities. While Ukrainian air defenses intercepted the vast majority of these projectiles, enough of them got through to kill at least seventeen people and injure about a hundred. And the situation may get more dire, since Ukrainian air defense missile stocks are depleting—and for some systems, the United States is the only source of resupply, with Europeans footing the bill. Zelensky has already appealed to the Trump administration and to Congress for new missile deliveries; but, with U.S. missile stocks also down because of the war in Iran, the likelihood of delivery is even lower than it was last year. ...
The most telling detail in Cathy Young's piece isn't the drones or the stalled offensive. It's the line about Putin's optimism. The Institute for the Study of War suggests his confidence comes from exaggerated maps handed to him by his own military command. Not enemy propaganda. Not fog of war. A picture painted by the people whose careers depend on keeping him happy. It's a man being lied to by his own staff, one flattering briefing at a time. This is the old habit of telling the boss what he wants to hear because the truth gets you fired. But the pattern isn't isolated to Russia. It's what happens to any leader who punishes bad news and rewards loyalty over honesty, or who treats flattery as a core job function for his own staff. Eventually accurate reports stop coming, not because the staff is stupid, but because they're rational. Nobody wants to be the one who ruins the mood. If this sounds familiar, it's because the North Korea-style praise that surrounds a certain guy here runs on the same logic. Same failure. Different building.
Russia unleashes massive barrage on Ukraine, killing at least 30 people, as Putin shrugs off energy concerns Russia Eyes Japanese Jet Fuel Imports as Fuel Crisis Deepens Russia is said to be expecting 200,000 barrels of jet fuel from Japan, routed thru South Korea’s Yeosu port, by the first half of July, as Ukrainian strikes crippled the country’s fuel production. It is currently importing gasoline from India, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, though the total still falls short of the demands.
If Russia does not solve its gasoline shortages, those Russians who were oblivious there even was a war going on will riot.
